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The Oceans in a Warming World - Prof. John Marshall - MIT Club of Northern California
John Marshall is the Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Oceanography in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS) at MIT. He conducts research in climate science and the general circulation of the atmosphere and oceans, which he studies through the development of mathematical and numerical models of key physical and bio-geochemical processes.

John became interested in meteorology and oceanography as a physics undergraduate student at Imperial College, London. Since moving to MIT over 20 years ago, he has studied physical oceanography and, increasingly, the role of the ocean in climate. According to John, “I was attracted to the field of oceanography because of its wonderful mix of empiricism, observation, theory and modeling. Furthermore, its ‘bottom-up’ nature allows scientists themselves to identify the problems to be solved, then organize and implement programs to do so. It still remains a field in which scientists working in small groups can make a huge impact.” He is motivated by the fact that understanding the climate, and the role of the ocean therein, represents one of the greatest and important intellectual challenges facing mankind today.

Professor Marshall is the Director of MIT’s Climate Modeling Initiative and also the coordinator of Oceans @ MIT, a new umbrella organization dedicated to all things related to the ocean across the Institute.
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Speaker

Richard Meserve, President, Carnegie Institution for Science

Abstract

The prospects for nuclear power vary widely from country to country as a result of many factors, ranging from the costs of alternatives, the response to the Fukushima accident, differing approaches to energy security, concerns about nuclear waste, and other factors. These changes in the coming years will dramatically affect progress on matters relating to safety, security and safeguards. The talk will explore the changing role of nuclear power around the globe and its implications.

Description: At a time of great political paralysis around climate change internationally -- and apparent backtracking by American politicians and the public on the science of global warming itself -- there are "reasons to rethink our approach," says moderator John Reilly. He hopes to "create a civil discourse that helps us understand better the varied concerns of people on the topic."

Panelists sketch the past, present and future of climate change. Kerry Emanuel reviews the science of climate change, noting that the greenhouse effect discovery dates back to the 18th century, and that by the end of the 19th, scientists had already begun worrying that consumption of fossil fuel and the accompanying release of CO2 would lead to an increase in surface temperatures of 5-6 degrees C. Modern science with its ice core measurements has tracked dramatic temperature changes on earth over tens of millions of years. But the last 100 years have been unprecedented, with the famous hockey stick illustration capturing the connection between human industry and increased CO2 release. When scientists run some models forward, they show temperature increases ranging from 1.5 to 4çC. While these projections contain uncertainty, says Emmanuel, "this does not mean we should do nothing."

Diverse climate change reconstructions agree: the warmest years of the past century were 1998, 2005 and 2010. "This is happening in real"time," says Ronald Prinn, and whether or not "Florida has a cold winter," warming is occurring "at a rate that should worry us all." The amount of heat the earth absorbs is simply much greater than it can bounce back into space, courtesy of greenhouse gas already accumulated in the atmosphere, and increasingly, by the secondary impacts of climate change such as the melting of ice sheets. At MIT, Prinn's group runs models that factor in clouds, ocean mixing, and varying levels of greenhouse gas emissions. In a "business as usual" model, with no real efforts to rein in fossil fuel use, Prinn puts the risk of a temperature increase higher than 4çC at 85%. If we manage to stabilize CO2 emissions at 550 parts per million (we're at 472 today), there is still a 25% chance of getting greater than 2çC change. Prinn worries about the instability of the arctic tundra and permafrost, which stores 200 times the amount of current human emissions in carbon, as well as the acidification of oceans, placing plankton, basis of all ocean life, at risk.

Against this bleak backdrop, MIT newcomer Chris Knittel describes the policy options for tackling climate change. He acknowledges the "dismal and frustrating science" of environmental economics, which had counted on the equivalent of a carbon tax to discourage carbon emissions, only to meet a wall of political rejection. Carbon pricing lowers demand for the fuel intensive products that matter the most in climate change, and whether in the form of cap and trade, or a direct tax, also spurs technologies aimed at fuel efficiency or encouraging alternative fuels. The nation's fuel standards, set to rise to 35.5 mpg by 2016 are modest, believes Knittel, and subsidies seem to encourage carbon intensive activities rather than reducing them (nb:corn and cellulosic ethanol). States like California are more ambitious, but recent court rulings blocked its cap and trade policy "for environmental justice reasons."

"The question is whether we can substantially decrease energy and carbon intensity while accommodating economic growth," says Ernest Moniz. New technologies that emerge must drive the cost of carbon "very, very low" if they are to make a major impact. With cheap coal the primary fuel generating electricity in the U.S., Moniz offers a "Michelin guide type rating" of possible alternative, 'carbon"free' fuels: At the top are renewables such as solar; nuclear; and coal with capture and sequestration. Natural gas doesn't really figure, since it does not wean society effectively from carbon. Moniz believes the best fuel technologies require substantial innovations to bring down their prices. The nuclear industry may want to try small modular reactors of 50"300 megawatts, rather than the 1600 megawatt behemoths that after Fukushima, are even more controversial. Carbon capture and sequestration will require brand new approaches and full"scale testing. Moniz believes solar technology is making the most rapid progress, specifically in silicon photovoltaics, courtesy in part of work in novel materials at MIT. Also, the "global, peanut"sized industry" of batteries may play a "huge role in transforming the picture" of electric vehicles, possibly making them economically feasible in a decade."

Sarah Slaughter believes the incredible challenge of climate change might make possible wholesale transformation of infrastructure, energy, and other resource systems. She cites New York City's planning efforts to adapt to sea level rise, which would likely flood the sewer system. All communities must think ahead, for hurricanes, or other disasters likely to flow from warming, but rather than replicate what exists today, says Slaughter, planners should focus on "building the world we want to live in." MIT and its partners around the world hope to develop "ground breaking technologies" to help transform communities and make them safer, and healthier. Slaughter envisions solutions such as district"wide heating and cooling, and describes a system introduced in Kenya that converts agricultural waste into fuel for cooking food. "There is an opportunity to do things right as we move forward," she concludes.

About the Speaker(s): Energy, environmental, and agricultural economist John Reilly focuses on understanding the role of human activities as a contributor to global environmental change and the effects of environmental change on society and the economy. A key element of his work is the integration of economic models of the global economy as it represents human activity with models of biophysical systems including the ocean, atmosphere, and terrestrial vegetation. By understanding the complex interactions of human society with our planet, the goal is to aid in the design of policies that can effectively limit the contribution of human activity to environmental change, to facilitate adaptation to unavoidable change, and to understand the consequences of the deployment of large scale energy systems that will be needed to meet growing energy needs.

Description: It is a complicated matter mapping the movement of pollution in the atmosphere, but Noelle Eckley Selin models not just the chemistry of the atmosphere as it absorbs emissions and responds to climate change, but its potential impact over time on human health and world economies. She takes a systems approach "to understanding how past, present and future human activities influence pollution, and its impact." Her goal: to provide good science for policy decisions.

Selin notes the dominating contribution of motor vehicles to air pollution. Something like 56% of nitrous oxides (NOx) flow from cars and trucks, and more from construction, lawn and garden equipment. These gases form smog and ozone, which constitute a major threat to human health, in the form of increased cases of asthma and cardiovascular disease, she says. The EPA has "ratcheted down" its allowance of permissible NOx emissions, and for particulates, but, Selin says, recent health research "suggests there is no threshold for ozone damages beyond background level."

Pollution impact of these gases is a moving target not just in health research, but also around climate change, where ozone and particulates are known "climate forcers." However, says Selin, the feedbacks between climate and emissions are quite complicated, and "a policy win on climate doesn't necessarily mean a win on air pollution."

To help achieve "win"win scenarios" addressing both air pollution and climate, Selin and her colleagues are hard at work on a battery of studies that couple methodologies, modeling air pollution impacts on the economy ("looking at how economic activities and choices influence pollution controls;" projecting health effects of ozone and particulates concentrations in 16 global regions; and the negative economic impacts resulting from pollution related health issues. Unlike other work that focuses on running scenarios focused on single topics, Selin says, "We're taking multiple models, to give more of a range of expected outcomes. We're developing ways to deal with scale, uncertainty, and computational issues."

Integrating models from the social sciences and atmospheric sciences, and factoring in uncertainties, Selin's group hopes to offer reasonably accurate pictures of impacts globally through mid"century. Studies focused on Europe show economic and health costs of air pollution in the hundreds of billions of dollars, with damages steadily accumulating. Pollution hampers economic growth, and mortality rises as well worldwide. Conversely, vehicle pollution controls, muzzling emissions, can keep economies moving.

About the Speaker(s): Noelle Eckley Selin uses atmospheric chemistry modeling to inform decision"making strategies on climate change, and air and mercury pollution.

She received her Ph.D. in 2007 from Harvard University in Earth and Planetary Sciences. Prior to that, she was a research associate with the Initiative on Science and Technology for Sustainability at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. She has also been a visiting researcher at the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, Denmark, and have worked on chemicals issues at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Description: In search of better"burning fuels, or more accurate projections of climate change, researchers inevitably work through multiple models, sometimes at great cost. Youssef Marzouk hopes to provide energy and environmental scientists constructive and efficient new approaches to modeling complex engineered systems.

In this seminar, Marzouk describes ways of managing uncertainty, which "is where a lot of idealizations of modeling meet the reality of the complex systems we're actually trying to study." Specifically, he aims to "quantify confidence in computational predictions, and use these predictions in design and decision"making;" learn from "noisy, indirect experimental observations," and refine and build models based on the most informative things observed and measured.

With formulas and graphs, Marzouk shows how he applies such methodologies as polynomial chaos expansion to "construct machinery that lets us propagate uncertainties, evaluate variances, evaluate any aspect of the probability distribution in the model output," in order "to apply robust formulations much more effectively." With statistical (Bayesian) inference and inverse problems, Marzouk extracts information from observational data to make models better, "backing out kinetic parameters working at microscale from macroscale data."

One real"world problem on which Marzouk has been applying his methods: ice sheet dynamics in west Antarctica, which pose "an enormous inference problem," due to unknowns about sliding friction, geothermal heat flux, and initial temperature of ice. Researchers "need to get a handle on this from the available data," he says. Another example involves solid oxide fuel cells, which suggest "a lot of potential as high efficiency conversion devices for vehicles or stationary power generation." Marzouk also hopes his modeling methods can help create better techniques for refining biomass for synthetic fuels.

About the Speaker(s): Youssef Marzouk received his three MIT degrees in mechanical engineering. From 2004 to 2008, he worked at Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California, first as a Truman Fellow and then as a senior member of the technical staff. In January 2009, Marzouk joined the faculty at MIT.

Marzouk has been honored with a DOE Early Career Research Award, and several research fellowships.

Description: It turns out that the exhaust exiting a car's tailpipe is just the first part of a complex journey of pollutants that scientists like Jesse Kroll are starting to map out. He wants to know just what these emissions consist of, how they change over time, and what their possible impacts are.

The term 'smog,' with which most cities have become all too familiar, is not really the direct result of vehicle emissions but the end"product of a photochemical process that was identified 60 years ago, according to Kroll. When nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons from exhaust mix with sunlight, the result is smog, which itself comprises ozone and particulate matter. Neither of these is good for human or planetary health, and the bulk of these emissions come from vehicles.

Scientists have done a good job dissecting ozone and its impact both at ground level and on the atmosphere, hence worldwide regulations attempting to reduce these emissions. But researchers understand a lot less about particulates, micron"sized chemicals born aloft in aerosol form. They matter because, as Kroll relates, epidemiological studies link high levels of particulates to increased rates of mortality (lung cancer, cardiopulmonary disease), and to impacts on climate. By scattering or absorbing light, particulates can mask the effects of global warming. Additionally, "we just don't like to see this pollution," says Kroll.

The traditional picture of the composition of these particles has proven inadequate, says Kroll, because it hasn't taken into account the way particulates interact over time with each other and under different conditions once they exit vehicles -- forming wholly new compounds. Regulators have typically focused on what pours out of tailpipes in the first few seconds of burning fuel.

Kroll, intrigued by how secondary aerosols form, and where they end up, has developed a new instrument to measure and identify the organic carbon particulates when burned at different temperatures. He has also run experiments over days in a refrigerator"sized "smog chamber" outfitted with UV lights to see what reactions occur. At different points in this box, the particles shift into gas phase, and back, as oxidation occurs. Ultimately, Kroll wants to measure the lifecycle, quantities and properties of this plume of pollutants, as they transform from primary to secondary aerosols, with the hope of offering regulators a more fine"grained picture of potentially harmful emissions.

About the Speaker(s): Jesse Kroll received A.B., A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. His research involves the experimental study of the properties and chemical transformations of organic species in the Earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric organics play several roles of central importance to environmental science: they affect air quality by forming secondary pollutants such as ozone; they make up a large fraction of particulate matter, with serious implications for human health and climate; and they exchange with other domains in the environment (oceans, soils, etc.), influencing biogeochemical cycles and the distribution of pollutants. A detailed understanding of these effects requires an improved characterization of the sources and evolution of atmospheric organics.

Description: Given its contributions to policy and practice in such key sectors as healthcare, industrial organization and technological innovation, and energy and the environment, microeconomics may not be getting the kind of respect, or at least attention, it deserves, these panelists suggest.

The field helped "produce a revolution in antitrust thinking" in the U.S., says Dennis Carlton. Since the 1960s, the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission have tapped the talent of dozens of PhD economists, who came up with notions like offering incentives (by way of lower fines and leniency) to those who admit participating in corporate cartels. This "simple idea" led to regulatory policy "with large payoffs," says Carlton. Simulations and modeling help determine whether the government will approve a merger, or step in when corporations become too big. "Emerging hot topics" in antitrust and industrial organization include the use of product bundling; patent law, especially in high tech; control and use of information over the internet; and privacy issues.

Richard Schmalensee calls attention to microeconomics' generally unrecognized impact on energy and environmental regulations. For instance, cost benefit analysis was applied to the process of making federal environmental rules, and is now "a bipartisan thing a part of good government." And much of the country moved away from a traditional model of regulating electric utilities, giving greater scope to competition, after some deep economic thinking about incentives. That's the good news. Schmalensee finds it "frankly amazing" and occasionally infuriating how economic thinking has not been applied to energy and environmental policy: the idea of drilling our way to energy independence; and the pursuit of renewable energy as a way of tackling climate change while side"stepping market mechanisms to achieve environmental goals. Schmalensee says he loves "the sun and the wind, but let's get serious."

"We live in a time of combinatorial innovation," says Hal Varian, where digital age inventors can combine components in novel ways, across great distances, in real time. Even small companies "can be born global," says Varian, becoming in effect "micro multinationals." Varian sees a transformation of business processes, a "nanoeconomics of the firm," where the highly networked, computerized organization "makes life more efficient." There are hundreds of billions in savings when knowledge workers can instantly track information on the web, he says, and host master copies of work "in the cloud" rather than on paper. Another hallmark of the new organization, exemplified by his company Google, is "experimentation and continuous improvement," accomplished by such technologies as search engines and voice recognition software that learn on the go. Varian sees econometrics as particularly useful in modeling new ventures, and believes that the increasing amount of data generated by the private sector could soon prove useful to the federal government, "enabling a better handle on what's going on in the economy."

Economic modeling had a tremendous impact on healthcare reform legislation, and as public debate rages, economic analysis remains essential in determining which policies will prove practicable, says Mark McClellan. Some key questions awaiting evidence and investigation: On the supply side, can changing the way providers get paid (traditionally fee for service) stem rising health care costs? On the demand side, will consumers accept health insurance plans designed around payment tiers intended to reduce use, with greater out of pocket costs for beneficiaries?

An instructive model for setting up a system offering choice and cost efficiencies may be the 2006 Medicare prescription drug benefit, which McClellan himself implemented. Seniors overwhelmingly switched to cheaper generic and preferred drugs offered by their plans. While government subsidized, the program "is currently running 40% below actuarial and CBO projections."

About the Speaker(s): Nancy Lin Rose is also Director of the National Bureau of Economic Research program in Industrial Organization. Rose's research focuses on the empirical analysis of firm behavior and the economics of regulation.

Rose was a faculty member of the MIT Sloan School of Management from 1985"1997, and has been a member of MIT's Department of Economics faculty since 1994. She received the MIT Undergraduate Economics Association Teaching Award in 2000 and 2004.

Rose was a Guggenheim Fellow in 2004"2005, a George and Karen McCown Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution in 2000" 2001, and fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences in 1993"94. She is the recipient of a Faculty Award for Women Scientists and Engineers from the National Science Foundation as well as faculty fellowships from the John M. Olin Foundation and Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. She has served on the Board of Editors of the American Economic Review and the Journal of Industrial Economics and as associate editor for several journals. Rose has been on the American Economic Association Executive Committee, the Board of the AEA's Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession, and on program committees for the AEA and the Econometric Society annual meetings. She serves as an independent director for CRA International and Sentinel Investments Funds.

Description: The built environment consumes a very large share of the nation's energy, and so offers rich opportunities for reducing our overall carbon footprint. MIT researchers share innovations that could soon radically alter the energy profile, as well as form and function, of buildings. Their work may prove invaluable to those in the real estate or construction industries seeking not just efficiency, but a good investment.

Pumping gas into a car, we can get a good sense of its energy costs, says John Ochsendorf. But when it comes to buildings, which are huge capital investments, "we have practically no literacy" around energy performance. Now we are entering a "new frontier," says Ochsendorf, as pressure builds to achieve substantial, swift reductions in energy consumption. He is helping to develop new metrics for measuring the amount of energy a building uses over its entire lifespan, from construction through many years of occupancy.

Ochsendorf maps the material and energy flow involved in producing a can of Coke, from the extraction of minerals for aluminum smelting, to the French beets used in its sugar syrup, and suggests that this level of detail should be available for our buildings as well. This means "lifecycle assessment with rigorous benchmarking of building performance," down to the CO2 emissions per square foot. Ochsendorf is working with concrete and cement manufacturers to help them achieve steep reductions quickly, and to design buildings that use local waste material such as clay, and operate with zero net energy use.

The value of buildings derives from their capacity to "protect and enhance the health, safety and well"being of occupants and communities," says Sarah Slaughter. There are measurable benefits, too: Acoustically quiet classrooms improve student retention, and reinforced buildings can withstand hurricanes and earthquakes. Slaughter is interested in using "low impact development" for healthy, resilient buildings. She takes a "system of systems" approach, examining first the interaction of systems within a building. Could use of rainwater capture, for instance, decrease the need for non"potable water, or could "daylight harvesting" permit the downsizing of artificial lighting? Slaughter next considers the building's connections to the larger environment, including its neighborhood and region.

She sees a "value"added chain" that ultimately includes municipalities and state and federal agencies. By targeting the right links in the chain, one can achieve both performance enhancement and cost efficiencies. This leads to "clearly demonstrable bottom"line benefits -- less than a year payback for some upgrades" as well as improved buildings that "allow people to complete their organizational missions more effectively."

Alex (Sandy) Pentland hopes to make buildings more productive and efficient, but focuses on people rather than structures. He has devised methods for mapping human activities, following cellphone and other wireless signals. For example, Pentland can track face to face meetings taking place in an organization, and troubleshoot areas of low"productivity. He describes changing the time for coffee breaks in a Bank of America call center, and saving that business $15 million. He has detailed how "tribes" of people move about in cities, and can make astonishingly accurate predictions about where and when these groups go to eat and the kinds of things they buy. Real estate developers could look at transportation patterns, for instance, and build stores in places convenient to a target group. These tools are powerful enough to reveal socioeconomic patterns, such as crime rates, disease and even life expectancy among different groups. Data mapping, believes Pentland, will prove increasingly useful to many institutions, although it presents some perils around privacy issues.

About the Speaker(s): Tony Ciochetti leads the Center for Real Estate's mission to improve the global built environment through industry relevant research and to promote more informed professional practice. Prior to his appointment at MIT, Ciochetti was the Director of the Center for Real Estate Development and a Professor of Finance at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Ciochetti is also a visiting Professor in the Department of Land Economy at Cambridge University in England. His teaching areas of expertise include Commercial Real Estate Development and Real Estate Finance. He has created or taught courses in these areas at MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, Cambridge University, the University of Wisconsin"Madison, Indiana University, and the University of North Carolina"Chapel Hill.

Ciochetti's research interests lie in two broad areas: commercial mortgage credit risk and the role of real estate within pension plan portfolios. His work has appeared in leading scholarly journals, including Real Estate Economics, and the Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, among others. Ciochetti is currently the President of the Real Estate Research Institute, where he is also an academic fellow, and serves on the Board of Directors of Real Estate Economics.

Ciochetti received his B.A. in Finance from the University of Oregon, and both his M.S. and Ph.D. in Real Estate and Urban Land Economics from the University of Wisconsin"Madison.

Host(s): School of Architecture and Planning, MIT Center for Real Estate

Description: The United States urgently needs a transformation of its energy supply both to address climate change and for reasons of energy security. To meet this immense challenge, the nation requires not just technological breakthroughs, but heavy lifting from big industry as well as government guidance, says Steven E. Koonin.

In a mini"seminar covering the history and economics of energy supply and demand in the U.S., Koonin notes that the pace of change in information technology has set expectations around energy: "We get fooled about technological evolution because information technology evolved at a stunning rate over the last few decadesBut IT moves much faster than energy." Koonin notes that while the demand side of the energy equation is subject to swift change -- imposing tight energy standards on appliances and autos, for instance, can force rapid shifts in consumer behavior -- the supply side is another matter altogether.

Barriers exist to the swift evolution of our energy supply: the large and complex scale of power sources; the ubiquity of energy, and competing interests of producers; the power of incumbents, which slows the market entry of new technologies; and the longevity of big energy facilities, which must be built to last decades. Cost emerges as a key factor: Nuclear power plants take billions to build. Generation costs alone for the nation's 600 coal power plants and 1,653 natural gas plants come to $25 billion per year. Currently, only the for"profit sector can take on projects demanding such massive capital, says Koonin, and "the U.S. energy system is almost entirely in the(ir) hands." He points out that the Department of Energy's annual budget is $25 billion.

Industry players pursue a single goal, under the watchful eye of government regulators. The mission is "not to deploy the most innovative technologies nor the greenest technologies, but to make money" in a predictable way. Koonin believes that "energy supply innovation will scale only when profitable or mandated through regulation." He cites the swift growth in wind capacity when the U.S. offered a production tax credit. Since "risk return is the heart of business," big energy projects must be bolstered by consistent government policy, with "longtime horizons". Beyond mitigating industry risk, government can also encourage "early movers" in new technologies -- leveraging the R&D capabilities of national laboratories to help with simulations, and offering "full"scale testbeds." Government should also establish renewable power standards, and make loan guarantees for risky projects. Koonin concludes that the "energy supply business is not simple," and the "people in it are not troglodytes, but in there to optimize things _ that's their job."

About the Speaker(s): Steven E. Koonin was nominated to his current post in March 2009. Previously, Koonin served as chief scientist at BP, after three decades serving on the Faculty and as Provost at the California Institute of Technology. Among Koonin's responsibilities at BP was formulating the company's long"term technology strategy.

Koonin received his B.S. in Physics in 1972 at Caltech and his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics in 1975 at MIT, after which he joined the Caltech faculty. His research interests have included global environmental science, nuclear astrophysics and theoretical nuclear, many"body, and computational physics. In 1998, he received the E.O. Lawrence Award in Physics from the Department of Energy (DOE).

Description: President Obama scored abysmally on his mid"terms. A trio of MIT professors renders harsh judgment on the president half"way through his administration, and their assessments may leave listeners "weeping or depressed," in the words of moderator Richard Samuels.

National security expert Barry Posen reviews the administration's strategy and implementation of the war in Afghanistan. This conflict was adopted by the president and many Democrats as "the right war" following the wrong"headed invasion of Iraq, says Posen. But after investing tens of thousands more troops, and nearly $100 billion a year in Afghanistan, there remains uncertainty about how to complete the mission: to clear out the Taliban, secure critical regions, and build up a successful Afghan police force and government. While the Pentagon seems to support an "open"ended project aimed at defeating the Taliban," the president appears intent on limiting the venture, with the aim of drawing down troops beginning in July 2011.

But Posen is skeptical of the overall project: Afghan politics are corrupt, rife with ethnic rivalries, and the administration is incompetent, so the idea of setting up a government "to compete with the Taliban probably won't work well." Though there are frequent reports of killing Taliban leaders, "many doubt the Taliban can be killed off as fast they regenerate," and there is little chance of serious negotiation with them. The creation of a functioning Afghanistan "looks like a costly, lengthy gamble," but the strategy is driven by politics, says Posen: "Democrats are quite concerned not to appear authors of defeat."

The U.S. missed a vital opportunity to take the lead in addressing climate change, says Henry "Jake" Jacoby. Early on, the Obama administration "hurt prospects for progress," putting healthcare reform first when it had a choice between "the health of the people and the planet." And the administration didn't forcefully back either the House or Senate versions of climate legislation, which attempted to produce an "economically rational" approach to pricing greenhouse gas emissions. Then came the recession, which doomed any chance for moving climate legislation forward, since it "made imposing costs very difficult," says Jacoby.

What troubles him more is that the Obama administration has essentially "given the pulpit over to people against any action, and deniers." Republicans seem to be winning the war of public opinion, claiming that measures against climate change will strangle the economy, and are now pressing to relieve the EPA of its power to regulate CO2. The "outlook is dark," says Jacoby. "The word carbon is not said in polite company, and won't be said in Washington."

While it is a "terrific achievement" that we avoided another Great Depression, Simon Johnson is still "giving out failing grades" to this administration. Although Obama and his economic advisers basically got it right with the stimulus, they shockingly departed from best practices around banking policy, he believes. When major banks flounder, you close some of them down, fire managers, eliminate boards of directors, but "whatever you do, you cannot provide these banks with an unconditional bailout," he says. Rewarding banks for bad behavior is plain shocking and leaves us in "a very awkward and unpleasant position." By making banks too big to fail and sidestepping tough financial reform, he says, recovered banks will fight all the harder against any effort to be reined in. "By building implicit subsidy schemes into the structures in which banks survive," we are stuck with "a few banks with excessive power," and the "administration is responsible for setting us up for serious trouble down the road."

About the Speaker(s): Richard J. Samuels is also the Founding Director of the MIT Japan Program. In 2001 he became Chairman of the Japan"US Friendship Commission, an independent Federal grant"making agency that supports Japanese studies and policy"oriented research in the United States. In 2005 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Samuels served as Head of the MIT Department of Political Science between 1992"1997 and as Vice"Chairman of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council until 1996. Grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Abe Fellowship Fund, the National Science Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation have supported nine years of field research in Japan.

Samuels' next book, Securing Japan, will be published in 2007 by Cornell University Press. His previous books include Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan, a comparative political and economic history of political leadership in Italy and Japan,and "Rich Nation, Strong Army": National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan,and The Business of the Japanese State: Energy Markets in Comparative and Historical Perspective.

His articles have appeared in International Organization, Foreign Affairs, International Security, The Journal of Modern Italian Studies,and The Journal of Japanese Studies.

Samuels received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1980.

Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Center for International Studies

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 17:18:56 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16707-report-card-on-president-obama-mit-experts-assess-president-obama-on-afghanistan-climate-and-the-econ
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16707-report-card-on-president-obama-mit-experts-assess-president-obama-on-afghanistan-climate-and-the-econ
Report Card on President Obama: MIT Experts Assess President Obama on Afghanistan, Climate, and the Economy
MIT World — special events and lectures The Energy/Climate-Change Challenge and the Role of Nuclear Energy in Meeting It
The Honorable John P. Holdren, '65, SM '66, Director, Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President

Description: In a meaty lecture that serves as a concise and comprehensive primer on the twin challenge of energy and environment, John Holdren lays out the difficult options for contending with a world rapidly overheating.

"There is no question the world is growing hotter," says Holdren, "and we do have a pretty good handle on influences on climate that are changing the average temperature of the Earth," he says. Since the mid"19th century, there has been a 20"fold increase in the world's use of energy, the preponderance of which comes from burning fossil fuels. The U.S. is 82% dependent on these fuels, and the rest of the world is racing to catch up. If all nations continue business as usual, says Holdren, by 2030 energy use will increase by about 60% over 2005 levels, with fossil fuels comprising about 70% of world energy use. While there is legitimate concern about the economic, political and security risks of fossil fuel dependence, he says, CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions that result from fossil fuel combustion pose an immense, immediate threat to the planet. From urban and regional air pollution to massive wildfires and fierce storms that bring coastal inundation, dramatic climate disruption is upon us and demands action now.

In order to avoid the biggest risks, such as a temperature increase of several degrees centigrade, we must "sharply change the ratio of energy used essentially immediately," Holdren says. But it would cost around $15 trillion to convert the world's fossil fuel dependent energy system into something less destructive, and this conversion would take too long, even if nations could agree on an alternative system. So we are confronted with striking a balance between mitigation and adaptation. Scientists think stabilizing CO2 emissions at 450 parts per million by 2030 might give humanity a shot at avoiding a planet with temperatures as high as those 30 million years ago (when crocodiles swam off Greenland and palm trees swayed in Wyoming).

Looking to cut CO2 emissions drastically, the Obama Administration is intent on achieving changes in vehicle fuel efficiency, promoting public transportation and other measures. But realistically, adaptation must also come into play, including changes in agricultural practices, engineering defenses against rising coastal waters, and warding off tropical diseases. The longer we wait, says Holdren, the more expensive mitigation and adaptation become.

The wrenching changes needed across the board to reach the ambitious goal of 450 ppm require "barrier"busting incentives," and cannot be accomplished without eliminating "perverse incentives" that encourage business as usual. Holdren believes carbon pricing is essential and inevitable, despite the current climate in Washington. Nuclear power has a critical role to play in this transformation -- including the elusive goal of fusion reactors -- but it must be part of a larger surge in R&D spending on new energy technology ($15 billion versus the current $4 billion per year). The political will to meet this challenge remains a sticking point, and so scientists must do a better job explaining climate change to people, says Holdren. Since there is no silver bullet for the problem, he concludes, "we have got to do it all. If you look at the magnitude of the challenge and the amount by which we must reduce the ratio of greenhouse gas emissions to useful energy supplied to the economy, we can leave no stone unturned, and that's what we're trying to get done."

About the Speaker(s): John P. Holdren, President Obama's "Science Czar," previously served as Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy and Director of the Program on Science, Technology, and Public Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, as well as professor in Harvard's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and Director of the independent, nonprofit Woods Hole Research Center. From 1973 to 1996 he was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he co"founded and co"led the interdisciplinary graduate"degree program in energy and resources.

Holdren holds advanced degrees in aerospace engineering and theoretical plasma physics from MIT and Stanford and has specialized in energy technology and policy, global climate change, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as foreign member of the Royal Society of London. A former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, his awards include a MacArthur Foundation Prize Fellowship, the John Heinz Prize in Public Policy, the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, and the Volvo Environment Prize. He served from 1991 until 2005 as a member of the MacArthur Foundation's board of trustees.

Host(s): School of Engineering, Nuclear Science and Engineering

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:53:32 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16693-the-energy-climate-change-challenge-and-the-role-of-nuclear-energy-in-meeting-it
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16693-the-energy-climate-change-challenge-and-the-role-of-nuclear-energy-in-meeting-it
The Energy/Climate-Change Challenge and the Role of Nuclear Energy in Meeting It
MIT World — special events and lectures Giving Back: Finding the Best Way to Make a Difference
William H. Gates, III, Co"founder Microsoft Corporation,Co"Chair Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Description: The world's most intractable problems might be cracked if more of our "brightest minds" could be tempted to work on them, asserts Bill Gates. Too many graduates of top universities like MIT find it infinitely more satisfying to deal in derivatives, he says, or lucrative areas of medical science like "baldness drugs." Gates, in his full"time job as foundation head, is pondering what might happen if "all that IQ and talent could be shifted to some degree" into the areas he's deeply engaged in, such as global health and education.

Gates describes some key issues his foundation is pursuing, where there is both "a great need and opportunity." One critical area in what Gates calls the "world's report card" is childhood deaths. Mortality of children under five has fallen dramatically, from 20 million in 1960 to nine million last year. This reduction, says Gates, has been driven primarily by vaccinations for measles, smallpox and other scourges. While "vaccines get less than 1% of the focus on medical spending, they are responsible for a really incredible amount of health benefits," says Gates. They are not only very cost"effective over time, but have added features: "What's mind"blowing is the effect that improved health has on population growth." Improving family health, by such measures as vaccines, paradoxically ends up limiting family size. Today, we're "down to the bottom billion in the poverty trap," says Gates, and by improving vaccine distribution and developing vaccines for other diseases, we can further reduce early childhood deaths and extend associated benefits to other parts of the world.

Gates is also engaged in the problem of education, particularly in this country, where "the system is working very poorly." With 30% of high school kids dropping out, and those who complete high school inadequately educated for college, some kind of breakthrough is required, says Gates. He wants to examine the quality of K"12 teaching and identify and disseminate best practices. Some of his test sites deploy classroom webcams to help identify constructive methods. Gates is also investigating the application of online, interactive technology to motivate kids, and to help teachers teach better. He views MIT's OpenCourseWare initiative as a step in the right direction, part of what he hopes will prove a much larger transformation of instruction throughout America's schools.

Whether eliminating childhood deaths, improving the nation's education system, or tackling sustainable energy or sanitation systems worldwide, there are reasons to believe we can make progress, says Gates. But the rate of progress depends on "the rate we can bring people inget the brightest people onto the big problems."

About the Speaker(s): Bill Gates began his major philanthropic efforts in 1994, when he created the William H. Gates Foundation, which focused on global health. Three years later, he and wife Melinda created the Gates Library Foundation, which worked to bring public access computers with Internet connections to libraries in the United States. Its name changed to the Gates Learning Foundation in 1999 to reflect its focus on ensuring that low"income minority students are prepared for college and have the means to attend. In 2000, the two organizations merged into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose mission is to expand opportunity to the world's most disadvantaged people.

Gates was born in Seattle in 1955. He dropped out of Harvard in his junior year to devote his energies full"time to Microsoft. He and childhood friend Paul Allen believed that computers would soon have a place in every home and office, and this vision of personal computing helped launch the software industry and led to Microsoft's astonishing success. Gates also founded Corbis, a comprehensive digital archive of art and photography from public and private collections around the globe.

In 1999, Gates wrote Business @ the Speed of Thought, a book that shows how computer technology can solve business problems in fundamentally new ways. The book was published in 25 languages and is available in more than 60 countries. Gates' previous book, The Road Ahead, published in 1995, held the No. 1 spot on the New York Times' bestseller list for seven weeks.

In 1999, Gates donated $20 million to MIT for construction of the William H. Gates Building, which is part of the Ray and Maria Stata Center for Computer, Information, and Intelligence Sciences.

Description: Beyond guts, a great business plan, and friends with deep pockets, clean energy entrepreneurs will need patience and perhaps most of all, a favorable policy environment to succeed. Fortune magazine editor Brian Dumaine leads a discussion with panelists from the worlds of venture capital, academia and industry on "how to build a winning green tech company."

Nancy Floyd sees talented and practical entrepreneurs "solving problems we see in front of us." Some of these may be "game changers," although they are "certainly not science experiments." Her firm insists that investment"worthy renewable energy ventures must not pose an additional cost premium, which means that projects must be "at grid parity or below." She also dismisses the notion that a great idea will be totally disruptive, completely upending or bypassing current powers in the energy and utility industries. "I think that's a stupid strategyYou need to engage those incumbents in a smart way. That's the only way to get companies launched here." The good news is that there are "many, many companies requiring less than $50 million that may have a huge impact on core technologies."

Kevin Surace's company replaced 6,500 windows on the Empire State Building with new energy efficient glass, saving the owner $410 thousand per year. Green tech, he passionately believes, "has to pay back, and pay back fast, or cost less up front." Government subsidies for energy conservation, and public incentives for consumers to buy green don't last forever, so entrepreneurs need to create a cost"saving product that will sell itself. Surace sees market"friendly green tech as vital to turning around the U.S. economy, bringing manufacturing back home, and reducing the nation's $16 trillion debt. But while he believes that "the best business plans don't require government intervention," Surace acknowledges not only the necessity of government backing in such giant energy startups as solar installations, but a wholesale shift in the regulatory environment. "The solution to all of this nobody wants to talk about is a carbon tax."

"We need an ecosystem for energy that is more developed," agrees Scott Stern, who worries that the U.S. has squandered its global leadership role in addressing climate change, and is currently in political gridlock around comprehensive energy and climate change legislation. In spite of this paralysis, Stern recommends that entrepreneurs look ahead and invent for the future. "Right now, we have bad prices for carbon We must think down the road: How will the institutional environment for paying for energy change over time, and how will the institutional environment for supporting energy infrastructure change?" Stern suggests that eventually, society will recognize that the cost of emitting carbon will be more expensive than a carbon tax. This is a long"term challenge that poses an opportunity to entrepreneurs to develop "a range of technical options." Stern hopes that some of these new energy products might eventually diffuse through the market and become universally adopted, as did semiconductors and the Internet.

About the Speaker(s): Brian Dumaine, Sr. oversees Fortune magazine's international coverage and its European and Asian editions. He also directs Fortune's green technology and environmental policy stories. He is the author of the The Plot To Save The Planet: How Visionary Entrepreneurs and Corporate Titans Are Creating Real Solutions To Global Warming.

Dumaine has worked at Fortune for 28 years in various writing and editing positions including assistant managing editor. He has won numerous journalism awards and written more than 100 feature stories for the magazine, including covers such as "America's Toughest Bosses," "The Innovation Gap," and "America's Smartest Young Entrepreneurs." Throughout his career, he has produced investigative pieces as well as articles on marketing, investing, technology, and corporate crime.

Description: Following the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in December 2009 in Copenhagen, Denmark, a five"member panel reviews the pros and cons of the events that took place. Moderated by Ernest Moniz, the panel includes Rob Stavins, Michael Greenstone, Stephen Ansolabehere (filling in for William Bonvillian), Ed Steinfeld, Henry "Jake" Jacoby, and a brief appearance by John Sterman.

Stavins opens the panel assessments by suggesting that climate change is not a sprint but a marathon; that international negotiations will need to be an "ongoing process and not some conference meeting which is the clear end point." Reasonable expectations of a conference of this nature would include political agreements, (though not necessarily legally binding ones) which recognize that all countries-both industrial and developing-must recognize their historical emissions and be responsible for their future emissions. He further considers the possibility of using other bi" or multi"lateral organizations in the future as a better forum for dealing with climate issues, such as Major Economies Forum, the G20+, or the G2, but that it is too soon to move from the UNCCC.

Greenstone presents five facts about climate policy and change and suggests that there may even be a cause for a shift in policy. First, the US cannot reduce global concentration of greenhouse gases alone; other countries will have to participate. Second, carbon"intensive fuels are cheaper than non"carbon intensive (wind, solar) per kilowatt"hour and that technology has not provided a cheap alternative solution yet. Third, current plans rely on unverifiable reductions; it is politically unrealistic to expect that the US would provide funds for monitoring emissions taken outside the US. Fourth, developing countries are poor. Fifth, we should not count on poor countries to spend their limited resources dealing with a problem that, for them, is far away.

Ansolabehere discusses the political realities and hurdles of passing energy legislation in our own Congress-the current short"term focus on the 2010 Senate elections, the costs associated with any energy bill, the slow"paced method of working a bill through the committee system. Add to that the complications of a recent Supreme Court ruling stating that the EPA has the authority to regulate carbon without much further definition beyond that and it becomes clear that this a cumbersome process.

Steinfeld focuses on the "two contending realities operating on different planes" of US"China diplomatic relations, While Chinese diplomatic reality is pessimistic, the reality on the ground is that China is incorporating "broad and rapid . . . cutting"edge technology." Each has unrealistic expectations of the other, while the rest of the world thinks both are the source of the problem. China makes these huge investments because it recognizes it is vulnerable to climate change, because it is trying to solve other political issues "under the rubric of climate change," and because its self"identity is attached-politically and culturally-to incorporating and collaborating on the latest technology.

Jacoby holds the view that, although the Accord is a step forward, holding to certain key target levels risks freezing countries' actions because they are so difficult to achieve. His final analysis is "don't lose heart, press on, anything we do has its biggest effect on the most dangerous end of the risk outcomes."

John Sterman's summary is far more pessimistic. He concludes that there will come a time "when we cannot overcome the damage done" and that "we are slipping our goals." Nonetheless, he believes that there is hope in efficiency, which is the fastest and cheapest way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and often yields high return on investment. He provides the simple, yet effective, example of not heating and cooling a building at the same time.

A Q&A session follows.

About the Speaker(s): BIOGRAPHIES:
‡ Ernest Moniz
Moniz page on the MIT Physics Department site
MIT Energy Initiative home
Ernest J. Moniz has served on the MIT faculty since 1973. He was Under Secretary of the Department of Energy from October 1997 until January 2001. He also served from 1995 to 1997 as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President.
At MIT, Moniz was Head of the Department of Physics and Director of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center. His principal research contributions have been in theoretical nuclear physics, particularly in advancing nuclear reaction theory at high energy.
Moniz received a B.S. degree in physics from Boston College, a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Athens and the University of Erlangen"Nurenburg. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Humboldt Foundation, and the American Physical Society and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Moniz received the 1998 Seymour Cray HPCC Industry Recognition Award for vision and leadership in advancing scientific simulation.
‡ Robert N. Stavins
Stavin's Politico website
Robert N. Stavins is the Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government, Director of the Harvard Environmental Economics Program, Chairman of the Environment and Natural Resources Faculty Group at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Director of Graduate Studies for the Doctoral Program in Public Policy and the Doctoral Program in Political Economy and Government, and Co"Chair of the Harvard Business School"Kennedy School Joint Degree Programs
Stavins' research has focused on diverse areas of environmental economics and policy, including examinations of: market"based policy instruments; regulatory impact analysis, innovation and diffusion of pollution"control technologies, environmental benefit valuation, policy instrument choice under uncertainty, competitiveness effects of regulation, depletion of forested wetlands, political economy of policy instrument choice, and costs of carbon sequestration.
Albert Pratt Professor of Business and Government
Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/about/faculty"staff"directory/robert"stavins
‡ Michael Greenstone
Greenstone's MIT website
http://hwe.mit.edu/index.php
Michael Greenstone is the 3M Professor of Environmental Economics in the Department of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at Brookings.
His research is focused on estimating the costs and benefits of environmental quality. He has worked extensively on the Clean Air Act and examined its impact on air quality, manufacturing activity, housing prices, and infant mortality to assess its costs and benefits. He is currently engaged in a large scale project to estimate the economic costs of climate change. Other current projects include examinations of: the benefits of the Superfund program, the economic and health impacts of indoor air pollution in Orissa, India, individual's revealed value of a statistical life, the impact of air pollution on infant mortality in developing countries, and the costs of biodiversity.
He is a member of the Environmental Economics Advisory Committee of EPA's Science Advisory Board and his research has been funded by the NSF, NIH, and EPA. In 2004, Professor Greenstone received the 12th Annual Kenneth J. Arrow Award for Best Paper in the Field of Health Economics. He is currently an editor of The Review of Economics and Statistics.
Greenstone received a Ph.D. in economics from Princeton University and a BA in economics with High Honors from Swarthmore College.
‡ Stephen Ansolabehere
Ansolabehere's MIT website
Cal Tech/MIT Voting Project
Stephen Ansolabehere studies elections, democracy, and the mass media. He is coauthor (with Shanto Iyengar) of The Media Game (Macmillan, 1993) and of Going Negative: How Political Advertising Alienates and Polarizes the American Electorate (The Free Press, 1996). Ansolabehere is also a member of the Cal Tech/MIT Voting Project. which was established in 2000 to prevent a recurrence of the problems that threatened the 2000 US Presidential election.
Ansolabehere received a B.S. in Economics and B.A. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.
‡ Edward Steinfeld
Steinfeld's MIT website
Edward S. Steinfeld, formerly with the MIT Sloan School of Management, is an Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT. A China specialist, he focuses on the political economy of reform in socialist and post"socialist systems. His book, Forging Reform in China, explores the process of state enterprise restructuring in China. His current research examines financial reforms in China and, in conjunction with the World Bank and MIT Industrial Performance Center, the impact of globalization on Chinese industrial policy and structure.
‡ Henry D. Jacoby
Jacoby's Global Change website
Henry "Jake" Jacoby studies policy and management in the areas of energy, natural resources, and the environment, writing widely on these topics, including five books. He is a former Chair of the MIT Faculty, and former Director of the Harvard Environmental Systems Program, former Director of CEEPR, and former Associate Director of the MIT Energy Laboratory. He currently serves on the Scientific Committee for the International Geosphere"Biosphere Program and on the Climate Research Committee of the U.S. National Research Council. His current research is focused on economic analysis of climate change and greenhouse gas mitigation, and the integration of this work with the natural science of the issue.
Jacoby received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin in 1957, an M.P.A. in Public Administration from Harvard University in 1963, and a Ph.D. in Economics, also from Harvard University, in 1967.
‡ John Sterman
Sterman's MIT website
John D. Sterman's research includes systems thinking and organizational learning, computer simulation of corporate strategy, and the theory of nonlinear dynamics. He is the author of many scholarly and popular articles on the challenges and opportunities facing organizations today, including the book Modeling for Organizational Learning, and the award"winning textbook Business Dynamics.
Sterman's research centers on improving managerial decision making in complex systems. He has pioneered the development of "management flight simulators" of corporate and economic systems.
Sterman has twice been awarded the Jay W. Forrester Prize for the best published work in system dynamics. He won a 2005 IBM Faculty Award, and the 2001 Accenture Award for the best paper of the year published in the California Management Review (with Nelson Repenning). He has five times won awards for teaching excellence from the students of the MIT Sloan School of Management, and was named one of the Sloan School's "Outstanding Faculty" by the 2001 Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools.

Description: Soon, after checking under the hood and kicking the tires, we will be scanning our car's on"board diagnostic system (OBD). Sanjay Sarma has been investigating ways to take advantage of a car's sensor bus, the module that records and conveys information about the vehicle's components and systems. Sarma hopes to make the OBD increasingly useful and essential to consumers concerned about their fuel consumption and carbon footprint.

Car companies have been "cagey" and even "opaque" about the information bus that now comes standard in most cars, but auto enthusiasts have long known how to tap into this system for information on a car's vitals. Sarma, a mechanical engineer comfortable tinkering with car systems, wondered if he could devise a way to gather a continuous stream of data on fuel consumption from OBD, and then come up with accessible and informative metrics for the data. As the internal combustion engine figures less in the future of cars, and batteries and electric motors more, says Sarma, "logging in and learning from this datawill be a bigger and bigger deal."

With a small team of researchers, Sarma conducted hundreds of miles of driving tests in urban and highway settings, micrologging vehicle fuel consumption. They first analyzed the effects of traffic congestion, which demonstrated that traveling slowly did not diminish fuel consumption, because in real life, accelerating and braking frequently wastes energy. They figured out a sampling rate ideal for harvesting an adequate stream of information and avoiding a sea of data, and a way of separating idling time from moving time fuel consumption. Ultimately, Sarma's team came up with "simple kinematic measures" for "flogging" (fuel logging) that could apply to cars of all stripes -- high"performance gas guzzlers, or the latest battery"powered inventions.

Sarma is enthusiastic about the possibility of using cell phones as an interface with a car's OBD. With GPS and accelerometers, cellphones could read out a "weather report of emissions," enabling drivers to determine in real time or historically what segments of a commute consume the most fuel. This information could be shared by other users across the internet. Beyond individual consumer applications, Sarma sees constructive use by public traffic authorities, which could detect fuel consumption/emissions hot spots and speed up long red lights, or even use data in "creative pricing for congestion." Concludes Sarma, "All sorts of things like this are inevitable."

About the Speaker(s): Sanjay Sarma was instrumental in developing the technologies and standards underlying the commmercial RFID industry. He co"founded MIT's Auto"ID Center, and served as its chairman of research. He has taught at MIT since 1996, and received the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Chair at MIT. He was named a MacVicar Faculty Fellow in 2008.

Sarma has more than 50 publications in computational geometry, virtual reality, manufacturing, CAD, RFID, security and embedded computing. He received the National Science Foundation Career Award, and the New England Business and Technology Award, among others. Sarma is also co"founder of OATSystems, Inc. and serves as its technology advisor.

Sarma received a bachelor's degree from the Indian Institute of Technology in 1989, a master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1992, and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California,Berkeley, in 1995.

Description: Knowing more about the environmental impacts of aviation is increasingly essential, but according to Ian Waitz, it is also an area where uncertainties abound. One thing we know for sure is that the airplanes developed today will be flying for next 30 years, as the fleet dynamics are very stable, due to the extraordinary costs and lead"time to design and build. Meanwhile, an increasingly affluent population will travel more, and more of that travel will take place on today's airplanes.

Waitz and his students have been developing state"of"the art modeling impacts, and advising the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA). He characterizes the environmental impacts of aviation into three broad categories. The most omnipotent impact, noise pollution, is associated with quality"of "life issues, health, and property loss. Waitz observes that noise pollution is observed by the public, typically at levels of 55 to 70 decibels. It is estimated to cost about half a billion dollars in property losses within the United States. The aviation industry is able to mitigate some of this burden on homeowners from a dedicated tax on ticket revenue.

A second environmental impact results from gaseous pollutants that interact in the atmosphere, or more generically, "atmospheric chemistry and physics". Unfortunately, the state"of"the "art has two known limitations: first, measurements are taken in conditions under 3000 feet, which is beneath airplane cruising levels. Second, long downwind effects of the pollutants are relatively unanalyzed, for example, down"winds that travel from Europe towards the East.

The third environmental impact, perhaps the best debated one, centers on global climate change. Waitz points out that there are many counterbalancing effects; for example, ozone creation may be a warming effect in the Northern Hemisphere but methane is a cooling effect globally. Scientists know that the largest non CO2 effects are created by contrails from aircraft that recombine as cirrus clouds. Yet, these clouds might either trap heat, or reflect it.

To date, government regulation of the airplane fleet has focused on reducing NOx, Even that is complicated, since more efficient fuels and engines can create more NOx. The FAA has strict guidelines to ratchet"down, over time, NOx produced by aircraft take"offs and landings. Waitz walks through the many projections, scenarios, and Monte Carlo simulations that underlie the government policy. He notes that whether or not there is complete information, decisions continue to be made, engine and fuel standards are set, and the environmental burden of aviation will continue to increase.

Description: It seems that income and travel are inextricably linked. As communities gain wealth and prosperity, their travel footprint increases. While this relationship affords benefits to those in developed nations, it is not scalable. Global population is projected to increase by nearly 2 billion people by 2030. If this newly added population drove just 3,000 kilometers a year, they would emit more tonnes of C02 annually, more than all the countries of Latin America emit today. "The world simply cannot afford to add another Latin America", says Chris Zegras.

Zegras observes that fundamentally, people do not desire travel . they wish to have accessibility. Travel is a derived demand, prompted by our activities. If we could make better use of telecommunications, or, if our cities were more compact, perhaps we would find less need for vehicle trips. This is not a new concept for Americans. Nearly 100 years ago, planners envisioned "garden cities" where urban space could be better designed to promote community and neighborhood.

Zegras and his students are modeling the trajectory of travel and growth in the developing world" primarily Asia and South America. In Santiago, Chile there has been a large growth of the middle class, accompanied, not surprisingly by an increase in automobile ownership. However, vehicle ownership and rising income are only part of the explanation. The research has noted that distance to the Central Business District, and proximity to Santiago's Metro system are also important factors. Neither urban density nor income entirely explains the picture of travel behavior.

In Jinan, China the research team has compared travel in four distinctly different types of neighborhoods, and conducted a survey with 9 areas and 300 households per district. Counter intuitively, the data shows vehicle trips are more prevalent in higher density. These are new style developments consisting of very tall residential superblocks. In fact, looking at total energy consumption, the superblocks use more mega joules of energy than households in more traditional or older Chinese neighborhoods.

At the end of the day, Zegras notes that there is a complex, and perhaps reflexive mechanism between the built environment and travel. The built environment may simply not provide enough accessibility to get us to a different standard, and behaviorally, people may cling to their implicit "travel time budgets". If they are able to reduce their daily travel on the one hand, might they then accumulate the savings, so to speak, and take one longer, leisure trip at month"end on an airplane? Measuring the carbon footprint of transportation within the built environment is difficult and there is "leakage". If we save in one area, we might spend in another.

About the Speaker(s): Chris Zegras teaches graduate"level courses in urban transportation planning, statistics, and land use"transportation planning in the Department of Urban Studies at MIT, where he has also co"taught urban design and planning studios and Practica in Beijing, Santiago de Chile, and Mexico City. He currently serves as the MIT Lead for the MIT"Portugal Program Transportation Systems Focus Area. He is also a member of the Campus Energy Task Force of the MIT Energy Initiative.

Zegras previously worked as a Research Associate at MIT's Laboratory for Energy & the Environment. He also spent 6 years with the International Institute for Energy Conservation (IIEC) in Washington, DC and Santiago de Chile. He has consulted widely on transportation, land development, environment, and finance, including for the International Energy Agency, the Government of Peru, the World Bank, the U.S., Canadian, and German overseas development agencies, and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

Zegras holds a BA in Economics and Spanish from Tufts University, and the Master in City Planning, the Master of Science in Transportation, and the Ph.D. in Urban and Regional Planning from MIT

Description: Our conversations on sustainable transportation typically begin with a review of vehicle efficiencies, and end with the characteristics of fuel, energy sources, and life cycle. In a remarkably novel approach to sustainable transportation, Krystyn Van Vliet discusses how other things matter too" namely the materials we build our bridges from, the infrastructure of the road, and of course, the tires we drive on. They are all parts of the sustainable equation. For the U.S. to achieve the reductions in C02 consistent with the 2050 Kyoto protocols, a substantial portion of that must be made by reducing the CO2 from the construction of highways and bridges.

Vliet tell us that traditionally, materials used to build transportation infrastructures are high volume ones that are critical for their performance, but also for human life" they are grossly overdesigned in case of failure. Once the materials are proven and accepted" there is a long road to changing them" not unlike the road of the FDA approving a new drug. Van Vliet adds: " Since the materials are used in such large volumes why has there been relatively so little innovation in them? The main reason is that the materials are inexpensive. Because of their low cost, cost is not a strong driving factor." But, she says, "New approaches over the past few years allow us to innovate at the level of the nanoscale and provide high impact change".

Beginning with rubber" which is used not only in tires" but also in seals, train bearings, and many other transportation components" Van Vliet demonstrates how the tools of nanoscience can be applied to discover rubber's macroscopic properties and map its polymer" particle matrix . Visual Information based on mechanical imaging of rubber at the nanoscale level reveals entirely new understanding. This understanding, in turn, can be used to fine tune the mechanical properties of rubber; for example, to produce it with different fillers, change the thickness of the materials, and its glass transition temperature points. Patents harnessing these innovations are underway.

The case of cement is even more compelling, and like the rubber in tires, there has not been, until recently a lot of innovation around this material. Van Vliet describes it as the "utility of modeling such an old, dirty and not very interesting materials with a lot of atomistic power to make an interesting difference."

The "DNA" of this material, reveled through nanotechnology, is suggesting entirely new ways of thinking about it. Cement is made up of three simple materials" calcium oxide, silica, and water. They mix to create what scientists call a gel. The pre"production process of calcination, and producing calcium oxide is the source of C02 emissions some sources estimate that as much as one ton of cement produces one ton of C02 emissions. Global emissions the from calcium oxide accelerate as India and China rapidly expand their infrastructure with concrete buildings and roadways.

In both lab tests and simulations, Van Vliet and her colleagues have shown that it is possible to use less cement-- by achieving higher efficiency, and to mix the cement composition with other compounds. And, a "pie in sky" concept which could happen, is to infuse the cement with titanium dioxide, which would break down and scrub the air of gasoline emissions, and return a healthier, cleaner air.

Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:58:24 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16622-where-the-rubber-meets-the-road-why-chemomechanical-design-of-materials-is-critical-to-sustainable-tr
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16622-where-the-rubber-meets-the-road-why-chemomechanical-design-of-materials-is-critical-to-sustainable-tr
Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Why Chemomechanical Design of Materials is Critical to Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure
MIT World — special events and lectures Sustainable Accessibility: A Grand Challenge for the World and for MIT
John Sterman, PhD '82, Forrester Professor of Management and Engineering Systems, and; Director, System Dynamics Group, MIT

Description: Transportation systems, as we know them today, will simply not sustain the worlds' growing population. Imagine a projected population of nine billion individuals. If this future population had mobility patterns like drivers in the United States, there would be a staggering 7.6 billion motor vehicles, using 440 million barrels of oil and producing 62 billion tons of CO2 per year. John Sterman says it is self"evident that our current transportation model simply will not scale. But, since the gross world product (GWP) is growing at 3.2% annually, and doubles every twenty years, our current model of development is an overture for environmental disaster.

It is clear to Sterman that we need to think differently about the problem. People need access to goods, services, people, and opportunities. This access is what traditional forms of transportation provide. We also need to see transportation in its complexity, and expect that our planning efforts will have totally unintended, unexpected "rebound" effects. Sterman provides two examples of these rebound effects.

The first examines the relationship between reducing traffic congestion and mass transit. Traditionally, the solution to traffic congestion has been one of supply and demand, and new roads are built to accommodate the increase in vehicle traffic. But, notes Sterman, augmenting road capacity just does not work: When new capacity is added, new vehicle trips, or longer ones, are encouraged. These trips quickly fill up the new road capacity, which produces a spiral of more severe traffic congestion. Meanwhile, some portion of these new auto trips come at the expense of public transit, which, upon losing riders, then reacts by either cutting service, or increasing fares. This downward spiral of public transit has a feedback loop which increases the attractiveness of driving. Sterman observes that planning is chaotic if we don't pay attention to these feedback loops and really think through what it is people want to achieve.

A different, but equally complex set of feedback loops, has been the undoing of the alternative fuels industry. Over a thirty"year horizon, three countries, namely Brazil, New Zealand, and Argentina each developed a national policy and provided incentives to reduce their dependence on foreign oil. Unfortunately, none of their fuel programs grew large enough to achieve sufficient scale economies. Sterman characterizes these new starts as "sizzle and fizzle". He cautions us from repeating their mistakes as a current initiative gets underway to develop a hydrogen vehicle and fueling network in California.

Having volume and scale will help us go down the learning curve, and we also need to bring many groups into the problem solving" these include vehicle manufacturers, fuel retailers, suppliers, and consumers. But, technology alone will not solve the problem. Sterman says we should prepare for the counter"intuitive lessons of transportation, and recognize that we will achieve better results if we make driving less attractive.

Host(s): School of Engineering, Transportation@MIT

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:49:39 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16617-sustainable-accessibility-a-grand-challenge-for-the-world-and-for-mit
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16617-sustainable-accessibility-a-grand-challenge-for-the-world-and-for-mit
Sustainable Accessibility: A Grand Challenge for the World and for MIT
MIT World — special events and lectures Carbon and Energy Efficient Supply Chains
Edgar Blanco, Research Director at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics

Description: Consumers will soon be able to quantify the carbon footprint of products they consume, and that could begin to change consumer behavior. The common banana you buy, say organic or not, is probably labeled by the country or origin. Increasingly, you might see a second sticker adorning your beloved yellow fruit _ it will be a tally of the banana's total carbon emissions as it moved from farm to table. That single number is not a simple one. If the bananas you bought this week were transported from Indonesia by boat__they have a different carbon footprint than the bunch you consumed last month grown, say in Mexico, and moved by rail. Behind this labeling system are a complex supply chain, logistics, and transportation considerations. And behind the measurement of this network is the research of Edgar Blanco and his colleagues at MIT. He begins with a consumer perspective.

Beginning in 2006, in reaction to climate change, consumers, many large companies and the media wanted to assess the full environmental impact of finished products, be they bananas, potato chips, or cars. Blanco compares the measurement of the carbon trail for consumer goods to, "developing a really large map of what happens behind the product". He challenges, " If you have a number (of how much emissions a product creates), what should you do about it?... Partially, the exercise gives consumer information, but it is also vital so that you have information about emissions, so you can do something about redesigning the supply chain."

The measurement of the carbon trail is vastly complex, and goes well beyond knowing the CO2 emissions produced by the transport sector. In one exercise, the research team compared the carbon footprint of bottled water manufactured and shipped in the U.S. versus bottled water originating in Fiji but sold in the U.S. The product imported from Fiji turned out to have a lower carbon footprint. Despite the 4,800 miles of ocean transport, the thermal/solar/wind energy used by the Pacific Islands plant was cleaner than the U.S. plant manufacturing relying on energy from fossil fuels.

In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began to explore a measuring system to help mitigate pollution from U.S. shippers and carriers. For trucks the task was daunting because there were more than three million vehicles and 800,000 separate carriers involved. However, it was also important because trucks move close to 70% of all U.S. freight and therefore remain a growing contributor of greenhouse gases.

Blanco's research on supply chains and CO2 emissions helped the EPA act a broker between shippers and carriers. In 2004 the EPA launched a program called "Smart Way" with 100 firms. Today it has grown to more than 1,200 partners. The EPA hopes that as more shippers and carriers join "Smart Way" there will be positive network effects. And, importantly, system models show that a ton of CO2 reduced by the Smart Way program is a less expensive option than other carbon trading schemes. Smart Way is also among consumer programs that have helped develop a carbon labeling system.

Blanco says the carbon and energy efficient supply chain analysis develops tools so that shippers have the ability to better select carriers. In a global world, in which many partners operate using many alternative routes and multiple location points, a single number is a singular achievement. These research methods are now being diffused internationally. Depending on the societal importance consumers place on C02 and the amount they will pay to reduce it, the models have the potential to change how and what banana reaches your breakfast table, as well as everything else.

About the Speaker(s): Research Director, MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics
Executive Director, MIT SCALE Latin America
Edgar Blanco is a Research Director at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics and is the Executive Director of the MIT SCALE Network in Latin America. His current research focus is the design of environmentally efficient supply chains. He also leads research initiatives on supply chain innovations in emerging markets, disruptive mobile technologies in value chains and optimization of humanitarian operations.
Dr. Blanco has more than thirteen years of experience in designing and improving logistics and supply chain systems, including the application of operations research techniques, statistical methods, GIS technologies and software solutions to deliver significant savings in business operations.
Prior to joining MIT, he was leading the Inventory Optimization practice at Retek (now Oracle Retail). He received his Ph.D. from the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His educational background includes a B.S. and M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Universidad de los Andes (Bogotˆ, Colombia) and a M.S. in Operations Research from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Description: Why do so many sustainable transportation programs turn out, like the Alice in the Wonderland parable to lead us down unexpected paths? Fred Salvucci observes that true sustainable transport requires making more than short"term fixes. A sustainable transportation program is built upon the pyramid of three "E"s: equity, environmental benefit, and economics. Maximizing on just one of these objectives imbalances the others, and leads to unintended and undesirable results.

As a case in point, Salvucci notes that improvements in sustainable transportation can be made by either "fixing the automobile", or by "fixing the system." The "fixes" have included the mandate for improvement in CAFE standards, nationwide interest in adopting a California car standard, and the Cash for Clunkers program. These are all short"term responses as car ownership, and vehicle miles traveled continue to grow.

Salvucci views public transport as a longer"term solution, and says that the government, universities, and other large employers have an important role in terms of turning the coin and incentivizing preferred modes of transport. He suggests that government policy and tax policies need to be aligned. He notes that transit resources need to be spread out widely and not benefit just a single region or provider. The early building of the National Highway System, a federal program that touched every state, received widespread support.

Building a consensus for public transit and sustainable transportation policy is possible, just as it is "possible to sail against the wind". The state of Massachusetts and Boston, in particular, have shown this political leadership as Boston has managed to grow economically despite forgoing new above"ground freeways. A new initiative now exists in Boston, over the next five to 10 years, as all of the major bridges across the Charles River" with the exception of one" must undergo safety repairs. There will be an estimated 20% reduction in vehicle capacity, and together these bridges carry more traffic than the Central Artery. Salvucci urged planners at MIT to think of the Charles River Crossing project as a "pattern break-- an opportunity to demonstrate more sustainable transport modes in the face of the vehicle reduction. Boston and the MIT community have a new opportunity to undo the deeply embedded use of automobiles, provided we really believe, and wish to follow, the objectives of sustainable transportation.

Description: While the U.S. has set formidable goals around cutting oil consumption and reducing greenhouse gas emissions, these will likely remain out of reach as long as we continue our romance with big, powerful cars, says John Heywood. This unshakeable passion, alongside the well"established habit of petroleum use, and the expanding consumption of private vehicles in developing nations, foretells a major crisis in sustainable mobility. Although we've known for years this was coming, says Heywood, "We seem to be stuck." He is leading efforts at MIT to develop strategies for moving forward -- identifying the "grand challenges and opportunities" that might bring real transformation to our transportation system.

Heywood presents data illustrating different angles of our current fix. For instance, there's the "horrendous problem" of growth of light duty passenger vehicles, accompanied by even faster"growing freight and air transportation, emitting ever more CO2 between now and 2050. In the same timeframe, the U.S. contemplates tightening fuel consumption standards in order to lower transportation"based greenhouse gas emissions drastically (e.g., by 70"80%). But these targets don't seem viable given the kinds of cars on the road now, and on the drawing board. The mix of more efficient gas engines, hybrids, plug"in hybrids, or all"electric vehicles, Heywood suggests, are unlikely to yield the kind of dramatic reduction in fuel use we're aiming for. This is largely because "in the U.S., people don't like light" vehicles, and prefer "ever greater acceleration performance." The sad fact is that "in the last 25 years, vehicles have become more efficient, while fuel economy has not really changed. Big vehicles are about as efficient as small, but percentage"wise, we consume more fuel."

Heywood argues that greener transportation will only come if we consumers "moderate our expectations." But "behavioral change is tough stuff." The best we can do, Heywood projects, is a slowly evolving passenger fleet: a mix of car technologies that achieve several percentage points' reduction in fuel consumption per year. Alternative fuels such as cellulosic ethanol or fuel from tar sands may play a role in displacing petroleum and reducing emissions. By 2025, perhaps half our new vehicles will have different engines.

To encourage even these slender changes, Heywood recommends continuing the US CAFE requirements beyond 2020; imposing a "feebate" system where people who buy low fuel"consuming cars get a rebate, and those who buy gas guzzlers pay a tax; better management of transportation infrastructure; increasing federal fuel taxes a dime a year for a decade; and developing national strategic policy around alternative fuels.

About the Speaker(s): John Heywood has authored or co"authored 171 publications in journals and conference proceedings, in such areas as automotive technology; energy and transportation, air pollution and combustion.

He started at MIT in 1968 and became director of the Sloan Automotive Laboratory in 1972. He was co"director of the Leaders for Manufacturing Program from 1991"1993. He was appointed co"director of the Ford"MIT Alliance in 2003. He received a B.A. from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. from MIT. He is a member of the National Academy of engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Description: Daniel Nocera is swimming very hard against the current of mainstream energy research. While many scientists are figuring out how to scale up wind, geothermal or biomass systems, Nocera is focusing on "personalized" energy units that can be manufactured, distributed and installed on the cheap. His main concern lies with the increasing energy demands of six billion people, primarily from developing nations, who will be marching onto the world stage by 2050 and likely doubling the planet's energy consumption, from around 13 to 26 terawatts (that's trillion watts). A "solution to the energy challenge rests in providing the non"legacy (developing) world a carbon"neutral, sustainable energy supply," says Nocera.

Nocera's science isn't about making big or efficient systems. For non"legacy populations, "cost means everything and efficiency is secondary." Nocera's metrics look at cost in terms of energy stored per weight of something, and so he plots a Boeing 777 plane, etching tools, and Big Macs on the same cost curve. Priced out this way, cars cost around $1 million. Pursuing this logic, Nocera wants to build large quantities of small energy systems and get them into the developing world before giant infrastructure"based energy takes root.

Nocera's vision builds on major research breakthroughs: He has figured out how to harness critical biological processes that may bring widespread solar power closer to reality. Nocera's innovations include replicating in the lab the process of photosynthesis in plants, using sunlight to split water molecules and store energy. "Chemically, I'm not doing anything in a sophisticated wayjust taking water, rearranging bonds and making fuel." A liter of water, energized by sunlight from a photovoltaic cell, can store 13 megajoules. The 3.2 million liters in MIT's pool could yield 43 terawatts _ enough energy "to take care of all of you." Nocera's photosynthesis uses a cobalt"phosphate cocktail that mimics the mineral"based catalytic process in a plant, and "keeps fixing itself," running endlessly on such humble fuels as Charles River water. His process even yields pure drinking water from waste.

Nocera's goal is to make each home its own power station, with photovoltaic arrays on the roof feeding the catalytic reaction that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Some of these elements are still pricey or unreliable -- in particular, fuel cells and photovoltaics are troublesome -- yet he envisions villages in India and Africa not long from now purchasing one of his basic systems for $800. While Nocera acknowledges his critics, he views them as institution"bound naysayers: "I always say when the scientists stop fighting, then you're screwed."

About the Speaker(s): Daniel Nocera is at the forefront of research on renewable energy at the molecular level, focusing on mechanisms of energy conversion involving the water molecule. In 2005, Nocera was awarded the Italgas Prize, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Nocera has received the American Institute of Chemists Award, and was appointed a Presidential Young Investigator and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.

He serves on the Editorial Boards of Accounts of Chemical Research, Inorganic Chemistry, Journal of the American Chemical Society and Comments in Inorganic Chemistry. He was the inaugural Editor of Inorganic Chemistry Communications.

Nocera received his B.S. in 1979 from Rutgers University, and his Ph.D. from CalTech in 1984. He joined MIT in 1997.

Description: The "dominant story of the next century" will be one of either gloom or redemption, says Steven Hamburg, depending on how humanity chooses to address climate change. To date, Earth's inhabitants have not meaningfully acknowledged this choice. Yet Hamburg retains a streak of optimism, based on his belief that bringing the impact of climate change home to individuals may stimulate a constructive response.

First Hamburg sketches the dire facts: the planet is headed toward at least a 2 degree Celsius increase in temperature in coming decades, with consequences likely to include shifts in crop production, coral reef decline, and rising sea levels that threaten delta populations with devastating storm surges. From Hamburg's perspective, there's no serious argument that humans are major drivers of this rapid change, which is already negatively affecting many regions of the world. While affluent societies may discuss adaptation, it's already clear that "the losers are those people living on a dollar a day, with no capital." So "the question for each of us is how much change is too much change? How much can we tolerate?"

Hamburg's first climate change paper in 1988, which focused on a subject he knows intimately, the ecology of New Hampshire's White Mountains, was met with "total silence." He worries that scientists are still conducting climate change research in a kind of void, with most people relatively oblivious to an unfolding cataclysm. "It's that dissonance that's a challenge for us as a society," he says. As a result, he's working with groups that attempt to communicate how climate change affects the "places we live in and care about." For instance, in Hamburg's White Mountain territory, climate change has led to a much shorter winter, and a pattern of winter warming and cooling that has decimated the once dominant red spruce forests, leaving maples to thrive (for the moment).

People everywhere must be persuaded to become "agents of change." Hamburg recounts how the CEO of Walmart enlisted him to help the corporation become more sustainable, which led to the sale of millions of compact fluorescent bulbs (replacing incandescents), major profits, and massive savings in carbon emissions. Corporations are getting it, believes Hamburg (even Rupert Murdoch's chains are going green), seeing that "doing the right thing for society" can save money. But these moves must be accompanied by government regulations, in both developed and developing countries, which will require a "conversationto link impacts in our own worlds and lives, with actions we can take."

About the Speaker(s): Steven P. Hamburg is an ecosystem ecologist specializing in the impacts of disturbance on forest structure and function. He came to Brown in 1995 after nine years at the University of Kansas, where he directed the Environmental Studies Program and served as Environmental Ombudsman. Today, Hamburg collaborates with 70 science institutions to create hands"on learning opportunities and exhibits for the public. He has published widely including in Nature and Science and has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Hamburg received his M.F.S. and Ph.D. (in Forest Ecology) from Yale University. He held a post"doctoral position at Stanford University and was a Bullard Fellow at Harvard University. At Brown he is the concentration advisor for the environmental science concentration and serves as Research Director of the Global Environment Program at the Watson Institute in International Studies.

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:16:46 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16598-climate-change-in-a-changing-world-meeting-the-needs-of-humanity-and-the-planet
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16598-climate-change-in-a-changing-world-meeting-the-needs-of-humanity-and-the-planet
Climate Change in a Changing World: Meeting the Needs of Humanity and the Planet
MIT World — special events and lectures The Energy Problem and the Interplay Between Basic and Applied Research
Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy

Description: The situation facing our planet could hardly be more dire: There's increasingly dangerous competition among nations for ever scarce energy resources, and climate change is racing ahead of predictions. Although Steven Chu believes "We are getting close to where it's very nervous time," he also sees "reason for hope."

Just as science in the 1970s produced a "green revolution" in agricultural productivity, preventing mass starvation in a swelling global population, Chu is counting on transformative scientific and engineering ideas to achieve sustainable energy and cap climate change.

As chief architect of new policy, and with tens of billions of dollars to pump into his vision, Chu is targeting key areas. Number one on his list: energy efficiency and conservation. Since buildings use 40% of the nation's total energy, designing more efficient homes and offices will make a big difference. There are "tune ups" possible for existing buildings, and software that can direct lighting, heating and cooling where it's needed that can achieve 50% plus energy savings, and won't break the bank. Says Chu, "This is truly low"hanging fruit, but we have to build the tools that allow architects and structural engineers to get on with it."

On the supply side, Chu has his heart set on transformative technologies such as nanotech breakthroughs in solar power. He's looking for ways to scale up biomass fuel production, now that synthetic biology can make microbes manufacture gas"like fuels. Noting in particular the work of MIT's Dan Nocera, Chu says he "wants to use nature as an inspiration, but go beyond nature," performing artificial photosynthesis to create new hydrocarbons. And as the U.S. and China continue dependence on coal, figuring out how to capture and sequester carbon from these plants figures "high on the list of things we must do." He's again hoping researchers will find some analog to nature's ability to grab and neutralize CO2.

The ideal environment for jumpstarting such urgent scientific efforts, believes Chu, is something like Bell Labs, where Chu himself worked. The Labs performed "mission"driven research" around communications and for U.S. war efforts, but along the way also developed the transistor, information theory, radio astronomy, and lasers, among many examples. These scientist"led labs emphasized exchange of ideas and rapid infusion of research funds to the most promising work. This led to inventions that in turn transformed the U.S. economy. Chu envisions energy lab equivalents that "deliver the goods" along with fundamental science, "so you can have the Nobel Prize and save the world at the same time."

About the Speaker(s): Steven Chu was sworn into office on January 21, 2009. Prior to his appointment, he was a professor of Physics and of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Chu joined the Physics Department faculty at U.C. Berkeley in 2004. He had served earlier as professor of Physics at Stanford University. Before 1987, he was at Bell Laboratories where he conducted the research that led to his 1997 Nobel Prize in physics, which he shared with Claude Cohen"Tannoudji and William D. Phillips, for methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

Chu is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Sinica, and is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and of the Korean Academy of Science and Engineering.

He serves on the Boards of the Hewlett Foundation, the University of Rochester, and NVIDIA. He served on the Augustine Committee that produced the report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" in 2006.

Chu received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976 and was a post"doctoral fellow there until 1978. He got his B.S. in 1970 from the University of Rochester.

Host(s): Office of the President, Office of the President

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:31:45 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16575-the-energy-problem-and-the-interplay-between-basic-and-applied-research
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16575-the-energy-problem-and-the-interplay-between-basic-and-applied-research
The Energy Problem and the Interplay Between Basic and Applied Research
MIT World — special events and lectures The Most Important Number in the World
Bill McKibben, Writer/ Organizer

Description: "Just a sleep"deprived activist and organizer." That's how environmentalist Bill McKibben describes his current incarnation, with writing career in abeyance while he proselytizes about the danger of climate change. The plight he first wrote about as hypothesis in 1989 has evolved into "deeply rooted consensus." By 1995, world climatologists agreed: "Human beings are heating up the planet."

After the inflection point of the Industrial Revolution, McKibben reckons, "no surprise --stuff starts to happen!" That stuff is escalating atmospheric carbon. Fast forward to summer 2007, when "Arctic sea ice melted at an alarming pace." Other deleterious effects he cites include permafrost reduction; growing release of greenhouse gas methane; paradoxical increase in both drought and deluge; rising sea level; wildfires and deforestation; agricultural jeopardy. These phenomena conspire in feedback loops to pose accelerating risks to civilization.

McKibben credits NASA climatologist Jim Hansen with deriving "the most important number in the world" _ the tolerable carbon level allowing survival of life on earth, now recognized as 350 parts"per"million maximum. Trouble is, we're already past that sustainability point, owing to rampant fossil fuel combustion. We face "not a problem for your grandchildren to solveit's a problem for your parents to have solved."

Upon return to Vermont from a revelatory 2006 journey to Bangladesh, McKibben's mission became activism in service to global warming awareness. He gathered 1,000 people on a five"day pilgrimage to spread the word. At the sight of this mass of humanity in a rural state, he says "cows were running in terror." So began a populist movement demanding an 80% decrease in carbon emissions by 2050.

McKibben saw the way ahead as harnessing the Internet's multiplicative power. In 2007, with the help of six students and email's exponential impact, 1,400 simultaneous demonstrations took place countrywide. "The thing just went viral," McKibben exclaims, "the biggest day of grass"roots environmental activism since the first Earth Day in 1970." Social networking and cell phones proved most effective tools for mobilization.

Organizers next turned their aims to the upcoming Copenhagen conference to form a treaty succeeding the Kyoto Protocol. The campaign is aptly titled 350.org. McKibben endorses the virtue of a simple number as a rallying point because "Arabic numerals are one of the very few things that translate easily around the world," avoiding cross"cultural semantic mishaps.

From Martin Luther King, Jr., McKibben absorbed principles of righteous activism. The good fight must be "creativedeterminedjoyful." In closing, McKibben cautions "nature does not grade on a curve." Global warming "is the morally urgent question of our moment."

About the Speaker(s): Bill McKibben has been an environmental activist, educator, and prolific writer over two decades. He was one of the first to articulate the problem of climate change for a nonscientific readership, with his 1989 book, The End of Nature. In March 2007, McKibben published his most recent book, Deep Economy: the Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He zealously carries out dual pursuits as an author and crusader to spread the message of nature's vulnerability and the consequences for civilization of global warming.

In 2006, he orchestrated the then largest demonstration against global warming in US history. Now he devotes his time and passion to the massive organizing effort for a worldwide event in October 2009, highlighting the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions.

McKibben is a graduate of Harvard University, and the recipient of Guggenheim and Lyndhurst Fellowships as well as honorary degrees from several institutions. He is a religious school teacher in his Methodist Church in Vermont, and a scholar in residence at Middlebury College.

Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Center for International Studies

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 13:07:07 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16560-the-most-important-number-in-the-world
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16560-the-most-important-number-in-the-world
The Most Important Number in the World
MIT World — special events and lectures Nanoscale Engineering for High Performance Solar Cells
Vladimir Bulovic, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Description: How much energy does it take to turn on a lightbulb? Way too much in the U.S., where 22% of all electricity gets channeled into illuminating homes, businesses and thoroughfares. Vladimir Bulovic wants to end the exorbitant use of power for lighting, and simultaneously brighten our lives more pleasantly, with the application of nanostructure materials called quantum dots.

Incandescent bulbs, he tells the MIT Museum audience, are hugely wasteful, with just 5% efficiency converting electricity to light. Fluorescents do the job somewhat better, and light emitting diodes better still, but these more efficient bulbs often emit colors that feel harsh to the eye. Bulovic and other researchers have been designing a fix for both the color and power conversion problems, a new kind of photo cell based on special inorganic crystals called quantum dots. The size of a human hair sliced lengthwise 5,000 times (10 nanometers), these crystals fluoresce in precise, predictable colors at different sizes: bigger chunks look red, smaller ones look blue.

Bulovic has been experimenting with nanocrystal suspensions -- applying a thin film of quantum dot solution onto a surface that can be excited by shining light or by electricity. "By tuning mixtures of quantum dots, we can makeany color of the rainbow." New sorts of lights, and displays with "fantastic responsiveness" and true blacks are emerging from this research, along with power consumption half that of today's LCDs and plasma screens, and the potential of reducing energy use 20 fold down the road. Some versions of photo cells could be used in laptops, and the technology has the capacity to scale up fairly quickly.

The world, well on its way to 9 billion people (many of whom still clamor for electric power), and a climate crisis, desperately needs this kind of new technology, believes Bulovic. He wonders if nanostructure materials might help with some of the hurdles engineers have encountered in scaling up solar energy solutions. For instance, the silicon used in most photovoltaics could be made more efficient by using films consisting of nanostructures that capture spectra of light that silicon can't. While solar won't solve the world's energy problems alone, it figures to be one very prominent solution, and Bulovic hopes nanotechnology will help generate energy independence, "in a controlled, clean way," helping to "uplift the world."

About the Speaker(s): Vladimir Bulovic is a principal investigator in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics. Bulovic joined the faculty of MIT in 2000 as an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Prior to joining MIT, Bulovic was a Senior Scientist and Project Head of Strategic Technology Development at Universal Display Corporation (UDC). At UDC he worked on the application of organic materials to LEDs for full color flat panel displays and thin film photovoltaics for solar cell and detector applications. Prior to joining UDC he worked in Princeton's POEM Center as a graduate researcher (1993"1998) and research associate (1998"1999).

Bulovic's current research interests include studies of physical properties of organic and organic/inorganic nanodot composite thin films and structures, and development of novel optoelectronic organic and hybrid nano"scale devices.

In 2004, Bulovic was named as one of the TR100, the list of top young innovators in technology named annually by Technology Review magazine. In the same year, he also was awarded the Presidential Early Career Award (PECASE), the nation's highest honor for scientists and engineers at the beginning of their research careers.

He graduated from Princeton University with a B.S.E. (1991), M.A. (1995), and Ph.D. (1998) in Electrical Engineering.

Description: John Ochsendorf, a structural engineer, "fell in love with archaeology" during college. His senior thesis at Cornell involved a 600"year"old Incan suspension bridge made entirely out of grass. Ochsendorf learned that this apparently primitive structure owed its astonishing longevity to regular rebuilds by the locals (during a community festival), and the use of renewable, biodegradable resources. While Cornell's engineering faculty couldn't see the point of this research -- "grass bridges over highway overpasses"? -- Ochsendorf realized that historical structures held important lessons for modern building technology.

The grass bridge raised several problems that now consume Ochsendorf's academic and professional life. First, how to consider the whole life of a product when designing it, of particular import since "the 21st century is going to be a wild ride in terms of natural resources," says Ochsendorf. Some building costs increase over time, consuming material and labor while deteriorating (nb: New York's 1903 Williamsburg Bridge, with $1 billion in repairs, and still unsafe at any speed).

Ochsendorf suggests alternatives: making permanent structures with high quality construction and reusable materials (such as Roman stone arch bridges); very temporary structures, such as the grass bridge, or a Japanese pavilion made out of recycleable paper; or modular structures designed to change over time. Ochsendorf created "a medieval building for the 21st century," a sustainable home made out of waste clay tiles, rammed earth from local chalk, and a heavy green roof on which sheep graze.

Ochsendorf also studies the integrity of existing historical structures: how to guarantee the safety of a medieval cathedral, or a 19th"century train station. The Pantheon's stood for 2000 years, a brittle structure that inevitably develops cracks. Engineers today can't say for sure "if something will fall down." Ochsendorf is creating engineering tools to vouch for the masonry, steel and concrete holding up both historical treasures and more commonplace infrastructure. He is also working on high tech tools so engineers can examine building designs before construction to ensure "safe results," and to create structures that will consume less energy and emit fewer greenhouse gases during their lifetimes. As composers know Mozart, and philosophers know the works of Plato, concludes Ochsendorf, the next generation of engineers must review the works of their forebears, if they're to maintain existing infrastructure, and create better designs for the future.

About the Speaker(s): John Ochsendorf is a structural engineer and architectural historian who works to preserve historic structures and to reinterpret ancient technologies for contemporary use. Ochsendorf has studied a variety of alternative engineering traditions, including hand"woven, fiber suspension bridges of the Inca Empire. He has also investigated suspension and cable"stayed bridges in Japan. More recently, Ochsendorf has explored the structural safety of such historic monuments as French and Spanish Romanesque churches.

Ochsendorf received a B.Sc. (1996) from Cornell University, an M.Sc. (1998) from Princeton University, and a Ph.D. (2002) from Cambridge University. He received the National Endowment for the Arts Rome Prize for 2007"2008, and was a Fulbright Scholar at the Escuela T_cnica Superior de Arquitectura, Madrid, Spain.

Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Program in Science, Technology and Society

Description: Climate change poses perhaps the premiere threat to coming generations, says Martin Madaus, but to avoid its worst impacts, we must confront the issue now. To that end, Madaus exhorts business leaders to focus immediately on building environmental sustainability into their operations, as he has begun to do at Millipore.

The challenge is figuring out how to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at safe levels while expanding economies worldwide. In practice, reconciling these objectives involves squeezing more productivity out of each ton of carbon by a factor of 10. "The good news," says Madaus, is that "this is actually doable." Reaching this level of "carbon productivity" entails major public/private spending, but, says Madaus, "This is certainly a good investment, particularly when you consider the mitigation cost of climate catastrophe, which would be unbelievably expensive for all of us."

While government must play a role in establishing regulations and incentives -- especially by imposing an unpopular but essential higher carbon tax -- industries of all kinds must integrate sustainability as a business practice. Madaus offers Millipore as an example of how "being at the cutting edge of environmentalism is a good business idea." His company has focused on changes in products and packaging, and reducing waste in energy, water and waste.

In its biotech tool research and production facilities, Millipore figured out how to upgrade boilers, generators, lighting systems, compressed air piping, and use wind energy to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases by 15% since 2006. "The amazing part of this, it was so doable, because there was so much inefficiency and waste of energy." Millipore's return on new infrastructure investment came in less than two years.

Millipore also developed compostable bio"plastic lab devices, recycling programs for customers, and paradoxically, a disposable product (replacing a large, stainless steel vessel), which ends up saving energy and water throughout its lifecycle. Beyond innovations in product lines and operational efficiency, Madaus says he wants "to make an impact on people's lives so their habits change." Millipore offers incentives for employee to use hybrid vehicles and to make their homes energy efficient, and encourages staff to come forward with ideas for sustainable living. "I wish we could make energy saving and eco"efficiency really cool and interesting; today it's still viewed as a tool, a behavior change."

These small steps are just the start, and Madaus sees a 20% reduction in greenhouse gases as entirely feasible -- and not just at Millipore. "If anyone tells you it can't be done because they're growing their company, they're full of it."

About the Speaker(s): Martin D. Madaus joined Millipore Corporation in January 2005 as President and Chief Executive Officer
and became Chairman of the Board in March 2005. Millipore Corporation, with revenues of approximately $1.5 billion, focuses on two business segments: biopharmaceutical manufacturing and life science research and analytical laboratories.

Madaus came to Millipore from Roche Diagnostics Corporation where, as President and Chief Executive Officer (2000"2004), he was responsible for the North American
Operations. Prior to that (1999), he was Vice President of Business Development for Roche Molecular Diagnostics. Madaus joined Roche in 1998 when he was general
manager of Boehringer Mannheim Canada in Montreal, Quebec.

Madaus is a director of Predictive Biosciences, the Massachusetts High Technology Council, the New England Healthcare Institute, the Massachusetts Workforce
Development Investment Board, and the YMCA of Greater Boston.

Madaus is a native of Hamburg, Germany (naturalized American citizen), and holds a D.V.M. and Ph.D. in veterinary medicine.

Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:26:32 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16535-leading-an-environmentally-sustainable-enterprise
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16535-leading-an-environmentally-sustainable-enterprise
Leading an Environmentally Sustainable Enterprise
MIT World — special events and lectures China's Development and China"US Relations
His Excellency Zhou Wenzhong, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China

Description: MIT President Susan Hockfield hails a new era of collaboration between the Institute and China, and Zhou Wenzhong, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the People's Republic of China, discusses the larger relationship between his country and the U.S., particularly in light of the economic crisis enveloping the world.

Chinese students have been matriculating at MIT, says Susan Hockfield, since 1876 -- almost as long as the university has been around. But the 1990s saw the start of a broader and deeper institutional commitment, with Mandarin courses at MIT, and a program to send MIT students to intern with Chinese companies. Now, the relationship is deepening, with an MIT"China initiative to spark research ideas and collaborations, particularly around energy and sustainable development, robotics, and healthcare; and a China Forum Lecture series. Hockfield believes partnerships between MIT and the People's Republic of China "are virtually unlimited."

In the 30 years since China began economic reforms, Zhou Wenzhong recounts, its domestic economy has grown roughly twice as fast as the world economy. Its GDP has expanded from the equivalent of $216.5 billion to $3.28 trillion. The ambassador reminds his audience that in spite of such gains, China remains a developing country, with an enormous population whose per capita GDP is less than 1/17th of that of U.S. citizens'. It is "a long way from basic modernization and prosperity for all."

Much of China's growth stems from a quadrupling of international trade. But intense globalization, an "irresistible reality" for all nations, poses major challenges, especially now with the rapid onset of profound economic malaise. China is moving to respond to this crisis, and looking beyond it, to help "establish a new international financial order that is fair, just, inclusive and orderly, fostering an institutional environment conducive to sound global economic development." The government has set out a comprehensive package of reforms to keep the country's economy running in hard times. The remedy, loaded as it is with tax cuts, social investments, restructuring of major industries, and energy conservation measures, may ring a bell for the U.S. public.

China also looks to its global neighbors in facing the immediate economic challenge, says Zhou Wenzhong, and in responding to such other pressures as terrorism, proliferation of WMD, climate change, epidemic diseases and national disasters. He hopes for a strengthening of U.S."China relations, predicated on an approach steeped in the "long"term and strategic perspective." The U.S. and China should "shoulder greater shared responsibilities," promote common interests in trade, counterterrorism, law enforcement, science, technology and young people. China asks that the U.S. treat it as an equal, and respect such core interests "as the Taiwan question and Tibet relation matters." With mutual trust and dialog, he concludes, "A new era offers unprecedented opportunitiesto build a better future."

About the Speaker(s): Zhou Wenzhong was born in Jiangsu Province, China in August 1945. He attended Bath University and the London School of Economics. Soon after, he served as a staff member of the Beijing Service Bureau for Diplomatic Missions and staff member of the Department of Translation and Interpretation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Then he served as Attach_ and then Third Secretary of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United States, then Second Secretary, Deputy Division Director and then Division Director of the Department of Translation and Interpretation, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In 1994, he moved on to Consul General (Ambassadorial Rank) of the People's Republic of China in Los Angeles, then Minister and DCM of the Embassy of China in the United States. In 1998, became the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of China to the Commonwealth of Australia.
In 2001"2003, he served as Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs. After this he became the Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs until he took his current position.

Description: These panelists use the lens of systems engineering to focus sharply on some signature global challenges in finance, healthcare, energy and IT.

The system failure that undid the small but influential financial services industry was a few decades in the making, says John Reed. In the '80s, a sea change swept over firms trading hundreds of billions of dollars each day. The new mantra was "shareholder value." Firms ditched time"honored rules of capitalizing trades and guaranteeing risk in order to build investor profits. The crystallization of this philosophy was the mortgage"backed security. Trillions of dollars went into "off"balance"sheet investment vehicles." When the nation's mortgage portfolio deteriorated, not just one node in the system collapsed, but all of them. To fix the financial sector, says Reed, "A systems view will be essential, including behavioral considerations, not just economics."

There's no point in saying U.S.healthcare is broken unless you can offer a vision. For Denis Cortese, this means designing a "learning organization." Cortese maps out this organization's goals: simple value, with "better outcomes, better safety, and better service at a lower cost over time." His proposed system would focus on the patient's needs in order to "raise the health of the entire population."

Cortese doesn't see a role for the government in his ideal organization. But there must be better metrics for determining value, coordination among large and small healthcare organizations, and "common principles in the payer domain." Ultimately, we'll need to define quality healthcare and set outcomes: "It won't be perfect, but it will be better than where we are today."

Nine billion people will inhabit the planet by 2100, and many of them will either be acquiring energy for the first time, or wanting more. This has "unpleasant if not catastrophic" implications for greenhouse gas emissions, says Steven Koonin. Powering up while securing affordable energy and minimizing emissions involves better modeling of the physical and biological climate system; overcoming the inertia of our current transportation and building industries; and improving the "patchwork" of our current energy grid. Koonin sees immediate opportunities to cut energy use in half in cities, but we "must bring policy up to speed" to make this happen.

Tackling global problems won't be possible without an improvement in complex organizational systems, says Irving Wladawsky"Berger, which in contrast to physically engineered systems, haven't progressed in the past century or so. Change is creeping in, though, as organizations manage increasing amounts of data with more integrated instrumentation and swelling computer capacity. Wladawsky"Berger sees new tools emerging such as cloud computing and networked data centers, leading to the standardization and customization of services for producers and consumers. He believes that the "merging of the digital infrastructure with the physical infrastructure" will lead to new ways of life, including smarter cities with smart traffic systems that reduce congestion and pollution.

About the Speaker(s): James A. Champy is an authority on the management issues surrounding business reengineering and organizational change. Prior to joining Perot Systems, Champy was chairman and CEO of CSC Index, the management consulting arm of Computer Science Corporation. He was one of the original founders of Index, a $200"million consulting practice that was acquired by CSC in 1988.

Champy has also authored such well"received books as Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution, which sold more than 2,500,000 copies and spent more than a year on The New York Times bestseller list. His articles appear in major newspapers and magazines throughout the world.

Champy earned his B.S. and his M.S. in civil engineering from MIT, and his J.D. from Boston College Law School. Champy serves on the board of Analog Devices, Inc., on MIT's Board of Trustees, and on the Board of Overseers of the Boston College Law School.

Host(s): School of Engineering, Engineering Systems Division

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Fri, 16 Dec 2011 12:09:03 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16523-critical-issues-and-grand-challenges
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16523-critical-issues-and-grand-challenges
Critical Issues and Grand Challenges
MIT World — special events and lectures Energy: The Past Must Not Be Prologue
George Shultz, PhD '49, Former Secretary of State

Description: There are few people who have spent as much time wielding high"level influence in Washington as George Shultz, and in such a variety of roles (Secretary of Labor, Treasury and State, plus the Office of Management and Budget, among others). So the MIT Energy Initiative has much to gain from a friend with this kind of distinguished government record.

Shultz discusses our nation's "roller coaster" energy ride. He harks back fondly to Dwight Eisenhower, who thought if the U.S. imported more than 20% of its oil, "we would be headed for trouble in national security." Eisenhower instituted an oil import quota program, many viewed as the "OPEC of its day," says Shultz. Prices stood at a whopping $3 per barrel. Then came the oil shocks of the '70s _ the Arab oil embargo, the Iranian revolution and the Iran"Iraq war. The U.S. faced rationing and prices that landed at $40/barrel by decade's end. During each of these price spikes, there was a "kerfuffle" that subsided rapidly, says Shultz. We never learned our lesson.

Shultz sees the U.S. at a momentous crossroads that he views, this time, with optimism. "Powerful constituencies are involved in this, all oddly pointing in the same direction." National and economic security and climate change are converging to force our hand. Shultz envisions the next administration taking on a host of actions: a "stable tax regime" for wind and solar power; carbon capture and transformation (rather than the iffy sequestration); implementation of nuclear power, if we can "come to grips with the nuclear fuel cycle issue;" ending the "dumb policy" of corn"based ethanol subsidies; and finding a better car battery.

These things seem doable, says Shultz. He adds to his wishlist "a wedge" -- something that would keep the price of crude oil at $70 or above, to help people working on alternative fuels. And there's also need for a carbon tax (preferred by economists to cap and trade). But "the big enchilada" for Shultz is "investing heavily in basic research." If you're going to subsidize something, he says, support activities that "will get results that will pay off for us." Shultz acknowledges the kind of partisanship and game"playing that take place in Washington around wise energy policy and science. He offers advice for people in the scientific community who wish to gain the ear of politicians: "Get people in there who are fun to talk to, and when the president thinks they're coming to the Oval Office, he'll look forward to it, and enjoy it and get some education."

About the Speaker(s): George P. Shultz is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He served as the 60th United States Secretary of State from 1982 though 1989. He is a member of the board of directors of Bechtel Group, Fremont Group, Gilead Sciences, Unext.com, and Charles Schwab & Co. He is also chairman of the International Council of J. P. Morgan Chase and on the advisory committee of Infrastructureworld.

His most recent publication is Putting Our House in Order: A Guide to Social Security and Health Care Reform (W.W. Norton, 2008), coauthored with John Shoven. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, and has received the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service, the George Washington Honor Medal from Freedoms Foundation, the Koret Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and
the Truman Medal for Economic Policy.

Shultz graduated from Princeton University in 1942, receiving a B.A. degree in economics. That year he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and served through 1945. In 1949, Shultz earned the Ph.D. in industrial economics from MIT and taught at MIT from 1948"1957. Shultz received his Ph.D. in Industrial Economics, and served on the MIT Faculty from 1948 to 1957. He is Chairman of the MIT Energy Initiative External Advisory Board and is also a member of the External Advisory board for MIT's OpenCourseWare.

Description: If "organizations are the way that ideas change the world," as MIT Sloan Dean Dave Schmittlein puts it, then look to institutions like MIT, which has wrapped its arms around the issues of energy and climate change, to help make sustainability real and attainable. The Dean describes some showcase work launched at MIT, including a long"lasting battery for electric cars, and MIT's own green campus efforts.

For MIT Sloan, explains Richard Locke, sustainability is not an "in vogue concept" that is about environment or climate change. Rather, it is "an incredible opportunity for new business, and for existing enterprise to reinvent their practices." He invites panelists and audience at Convocation sessions to engage in dialog about moving beyond theory to meet the challenges of sustainability.

Forget the notion that the climate challenge is primarily a technical one, and can be solved with the help of 21st century know"how, says John Sterman. A more useful response would combine the distributed leadership of a civil rights movement with the technological daring of a Manhattan project. There are huge obstacles to overcome: According to Sterman, while a vast majority of people have heard of global warming, believe it poses a threat and believe in reducing greenhouse emissions, a majority also oppose any changes that would "put the true costs of energy in front of you at the pump and in your electric bill." There's widespread belief that we can "wait and see" whether climate change is really that bad.

Sterman is working on providing policy makers and the public with interactive models that demonstrate just how immediate the climate threat is and how a slack response will only make things worse. He wants people to perceive that they must reduce greenhouse gases dramatically, but he also wants to destroy the myth that doing so will "kill the economy." Sterman says "addressing this issue will pay dividends-that if we can cut the use of fossil fuels, it puts money in our pockets."

Vladimir Bulovic wants to make the climate issue personal and immediate: the arboreal forests of the world produce 2/3rds of the planet's oxygen, and due to warming (and the diseases that accompany it), trees are dying off. This image of our world choking on its own waste is motivating MIT scientists to find alternatives to polluting energy sources. He cites in particular efforts to harness the sun's energy, including improving silicon technology, engineering photons to make electricity, and advancing ways of concentrating and storing solar power.

British telecom BT has managed to reduce its carbon footprint by 58% since 1996. Imagine what would happen if other global corporations followed suit, queries Kevin Moss. He challenges his commercial peers to scour their business processes to reduce real estate and transportation usage, improve energy efficiency (e.g., by raising operating temperatures at data centers), and to purchase renewable energy. BT's next goal: an 80% reduction of carbon emissions, and to secure 25% of its energy needs by wind energy by 2016.

About the Speaker(s): John D. Sterman's research includes systems thinking and organizational learning, computer simulation of corporate strategy, and the theory of nonlinear dynamics. He is the author of many scholarly and popular articles on the challenges and opportunities facing organizations today, including the book Modeling for Organizational Learning, and the award"winning textbook Business Dynamics.

Sterman's research centers on improving managerial decision making in complex systems. He has pioneered the development of "management flight simulators" of corporate and economic systems.

Sterman has twice been awarded the Jay W. Forrester Prize for the best published work in system dynamics. He won a 2005 IBM Faculty Award, and the 2001 Accenture Award for the best paper of the year published in the California Management Review (with Nelson Repenning). He has five times won awards for teaching excellence from the students of the MIT Sloan School of Management, and was named one of the Sloan School's "Outstanding Faculty" by the 2001 Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools.

Host(s): Sloan School of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management

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Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:16:44 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16468-climate-change-challenges-and-opportunities-for-business-and-society
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16468-climate-change-challenges-and-opportunities-for-business-and-society
Climate Change: Challenges and Opportunities for Business and Society
MIT World — special events and lectures Science Policy and the Obama Administration Advice to a New President
Marc A. Kastner, Dean, MIT School of Science

Description: The mood of gloom has eased somewhat within the science community, with the advent of a new presidential administration, and Marc Kastner captures the mix of hopefulness and trepidation among his peers around the enormous challenges the nation faces in coming years.

Kastner describes four areas "in order of increasing difficulty" the new president must address:

The president's first move should be to increase the prestige of science in government, by giving the science advisor a more important role, listening carefully to career scientists in government agencies, and encouraging rather than punishing them for speaking out.

Second, Kastner advises expanding basic research on energy and environment. The U.S. imports $700 billion worth of oil per year, placing the nation "in jeopardy economically and politically," says Kastner. Clean energy is likely to be a huge industry, and if the U.S. is to lead worldwide, it must begin to master a cluster of technologies that together pose our best chance of beating climate change.

We need a huge infusion of R&D money in such thorny areas as: carbon sequestration (we don't yet know if CO2 can be efficiently and safely injected into underground pore space); electrical storage, where we need a five"fold improvement in battery technology to produce an all"electric car that can run for 200 miles; solar energy, where current solar cells are made from materials that are too costly, and not yet efficient enough. While federal and private energy research has been declining, the International Energy Agency estimates the world will require $17 trillion dollars to stabilize CO2emissions between now and 2050.

The third order of business involves biology: Having teased apart the DNA molecule and mapped the genome, we now stand ready for a third revolution in life science, says Kastner. This will involve the convergence of biology with mathematics, physics and engineering. Says Kastner: "The gigantic amount of data being generated by rapid sequencing requires new approaches: biology needs theory for the first time, needs integrating ideas to explore information and come up with clarity."

The final and perhaps toughest job involves stabilizing science funding. Over the past 20 years, math, physical science and engineering funding have remained flat. In the life sciences it doubled (partly due to 9/11), then declined. While "it's wonderful to give more money to science," rapid increases over short times have often been followed by sharp dips, creating major research disruptions. Plus, says Kastner, it's unhealthy to fund one area and not the rest. "Different sciences reinforce each other and the scientific enterprise cannot do well if only one field is supported and the others are not."

About the Speaker(s): Marc Kastner joined the Department of Physics in 1973, was named Donner Professor of Science in 1989, appointed Department Head in February 1998, and in July 2007, became Dean of the School of Science. A graduate of the University of Chicago (S.B. 1967, M.S. 1969, Ph.D. 1972), he was a research fellow at Harvard University prior to joining MIT.

He served as Head of the MIT Department of Physics Division of Atomic, Condensed Matter, and Plasma Physics from 1983 to 1987, and as Associate Director of MIT's Consortium for Superconducting Electronics-a collaborative program designed to advance the technology of thin"film superconducting electronics-from 1989 to 1992. He served as Director of MIT's Center for Materials Science and Engineering from 1993 to 1998.

Host(s): School of Humanities, Arts & Social Sciences, Center for International Studies

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Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:13:43 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16466-science-policy-and-the-obama-administration-advice-to-a-new-president
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16466-science-policy-and-the-obama-administration-advice-to-a-new-president
Science Policy and the Obama Administration Advice to a New President
MIT World — special events and lectures BUILDING TECHNOLOGY, TALENT AND POLICY BRIDGES TO A LOW"CARBON FUTURE
James Rogers, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, Duke Energy

Description: After 20"plus years in the utility industry, James Rogers is emphatic that we must "build a bridge to a low carbon world." He confesses to a missionary zeal around clean energy, and to the fact that he must reinvent his business, Duke Energy.

Rogers invokes 3, 12 and 41 as the key numbers defining his challenge: Duke, with four million customers in five states, is the third largest emitter of CO2 among U.S. companies, the 12th largest corporate emitter in the world, and, 41st among nations if the firm were a country.

Rogers conceives of the challenge in terms he calls "cathedral thinking." Just as it took three generations to design and build Notre Dame, so will it take decades to resolve the carbon issue. "It took us 100 years to get here, and will take a while to get out of this. We need a sense of urgency, but not a sense of panica sense of hope, not a sense of fear. "

He names "two aspirations for the company." The first involves modernizing and de"carbonizing the power supply, which he thinks can be accomplished if carbon capture and the next generation of nuclear technology prove themselves. The second aspiration is to maximize energy efficiency, even as demand for electricity rises.

Reducing greenhouse emissions will mean getting politicians to back an economy wide cap and trade on CO2, with "allowances to help make the transition for those dependent on coal." 25 states get more than 50% of their electricity from coal, Rogers reminds us. A consumer revolt might prevent meaningful laws from passing. While pursuing mitigation, we must also struggle with adaptation. Rogers detects great difficulty getting our politicians to aid places like Bangladesh that will most suffer from warming. Above all, the U.S. must start funding technology R&D. Rogers despairs of politicians responsibly dispersing R&D dollars, so he recommends a national trust fund to focus such spending.

As a firm believer in incentives, Rogers would like to reward utilities for saving watts. He says "energy efficiency is one of the five ways you generate electricity -- it should be treated as a production option." Duke Energy is attempting to achieve efficiencies by modernizing coal plants, and hopes to find software to optimize and streamline its operations as well. While customers and investors routinely evaluate Rogers' performance, he most cares about his family's judgment in the future. "At the end of the day, I want my grandchildren to say my granddaddy made the right decision when faced with 3, 12, 41."

About the Speaker(s): James Rogers has nearly 20 years of experience as a chief executive officer in the electric utility industry. He was named president and chief executive officer of Duke Energy following the merger of Duke Energy and Cinergy in April 2006.

Rogers has served as deputy general counsel for litigation and enforcement for the Federal Regulatory Commission (FERC); executive vice president of interstate pipelines for the Enron Gas Pipeline Group; and as a partner in the Washington, D.C., office of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. Prior to those appointments, he served as assistant to the chief trial counsel at FERC; as a law clerk for the Supreme Court of Kentucky; and as assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, where he acted as intervener on behalf of state consumers in gas, electric and telephone rate cases. He was also a reporter for the Lexington (Kentucky) Herald"Leader.

Rogers attended Emory University and earned a bachelor of business administration and a J.D. from the University of Kentucky.

Description: In turn pragmatic and visionary, John Doerr describes his venture capital firm's response to the climate change/clean energy challenge, while answering a range of questions from an entrepreneurial and academic audience.

Doerr says that "it's a flat, crowded, hot world, and getting hotter." Science informs us that we dare not exceed a 2oC rise in global temperatures, lest the planet suffer irreversible, catastrophic climate change. This means we must "stop dumping 70 million tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every day as if it were a free open sewer." Such a task involves reducing greenhouse emissions across the globe by more than 50% by 2030, and the developed world must reduce its emissions by 90% in the same timeframe. While there's no single silver bullet to achieve such a vast turnaround at speed and at scale, there are some "big bullets" in our arsenal, says Doerr.

Kleiner Perkins looks to "disruptive" R&D that can make a serious dent in the CO2/clean energy problem. Doerr describes ventures involving the first volume, plug"in hybrid automobile; diesel fuel synthesized from sugar; alternatives to coal"fired electricity, including new, promising solar cell technology; and a large"scale conservation enterprise that relies on RFID to encourage residents to recycle.

But all of these R&D efforts represent a drop in the bucket, notes Doerr _ nowhere near the scale required to attack the problem. "We must find answers that are economic for all people, everywhere. We must use policy to harness innovation, to make sure the right thing to do is the profitable thing to do, so it becomes the probable thing to happen." The U.S. government has invested a measly $1 billion per year in renewable energy R&D, while Exxon, he says, earned more than $1.1 billion per day in revenue. Energy is "the mother of all markets," at $6 trillion a year worldwide. "Going green, solving that problem is going to be the largest transformation we've seen on the planet since we went aerobic, from methane to oxygen."

Doerr also backs efforts to change laws to stem emissions, such as California's Global Warming Solutions Act. He hopes the next few years will bring a national cap and trade system on greenhouse gases, and even better, a carbon tax that's revenue neutral to taxpayers. He'd also like to see state utilities' profits decoupled "from the number of electrons they serve."

Doerr imagines a "planetary call to action," bigger than the Apollo and Manhattan projects, because "this is nothing less than re"industrializing every city, every town, every country on the planet."

About the Speaker(s): John Doerr earned a B.S. and M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Rice University, and an M.B.A. from Harvard University. He joined Intel Corporation in 1974, and went to Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers in 1980, where he has directed venture capital funding to some of the most successful technology companies in the world, including Compaq, Netscape, Symantec, Amazon.com and Google.

Doerr serves on the boards of Intuit, and Sun Microsystems, among others and on the boards of private ventures, Zazzle, Miasole, Purkinje, Spatial Photonics, and Good Technology.

Description: For those seeking reassurance that American politicians take climate change and clean energy seriously, look no further: Jeff Bingaman wraps his arms around this enormous issue, and sets forth an ambitious national agenda to address the challenge.

Bingaman sees a new attitude emerging in Washington. Politicians have begun to grasp that reduced dependence on foreign oil is not enough, and that today's energy challenge requires an overhaul in the way the entire world produces, stores, distributes, and uses energy, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This means moving entire economies from fossil fuels, says Bingaman, to non"emitting energy sources. This urgent, immense challenge is happening "in a world of growing demand for energy as billions of people are rising out of poverty," he says. The U.S. can hardly tell India not to bring its new gigantic coal"burning power plants online, which will emit more than 23 million tons of CO2 a year, "when most of us here have never known a life without electricity."

Solutions must come from new technologies, which are more likely to emerge with appropriate incentives such as the cap"and"grade regulations Bingaman and his Senate colleagues are designing that recognize the actual costs of continued greenhouse emissions. But more should be done to encourage the development of these technologies, especially, as Bingaman notes, given inadequate political action in the past decades to promote, prioritize, and sustain science and technology enterprise in a way that could create a new, clean energy economy. Bingaman describes how, for example, successive administrations pursue their own new vehicle technologies, rather than sticking with a single strategy. Tax incentives for wind turbines and solar energy development ebb and flow, resulting in a "boom and bust cycle that sends the wrong message to entrepreneurs," says Bingaman.

Bingaman lays out five steps for the U.S. to establish leadership in the clean energy field: strengthening science and technology responsibility at the highest levels of government, including giving high level budget responsibility to the President's Science Advisor; prioritizing critical, enabling energy technology areas, with the help of the Science Advisor and National Academies; developing roadmaps and assigning responsibility for pursuing each technology area, with the involvement of academic, government and industry representatives; ensuring sustained focus and adequate funding by requiring the President to submit a separate budget document to Congress each year detailing requests for each technology area; and finally, reviewing and updating energy technology priorities every five years.

About the Speaker(s): Jeff Bingaman is Chairman of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee. He serves as well on the Finance Committee; on the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee; and on the Joint Economic Committee.

Bingaman grew up in Silver City, New Mexico. He graduated from Harvard University and earned a law degree at Stanford.

Bingaman was elected New Mexico Attorney General in 1978. In 1982, he won election to the United States Senate, and in 2006, was re"elected to serve a fifth term.

Description: Veerabhadran Ramanathan recaps 35 years of key findings, and brings his audience up to date on the latest climate data, models, and observations which together demonstrate how CO2 is but one piece of a complex puzzle.

Ramanathan deploys simple but extremely helpful metaphors to describe the processes behind warming. CO2 in the atmosphere, whether manmade or natural, surrounds the earth like a blanket, holding onto the radiation from the sun. When the blanket is behaving properly, enough sun's heat stays on earth to keep biological forces humming, and the rest escapes back into space. But if this blanket gets thicker, it "prevents the body from losing heat." CO2 is particularly noxious, since it "lives in the atmosphere for a century if not longer." But it turns out we have other molecules circling the globe to worry about.

Starting in the 1970s, scientists discovered that compounds in the atmosphere, such as chlorofluorocarbons and methane, acted more powerfully than CO2 in making our "blanket" more efficient in trapping heat. They began developing models trying to describe the complex interplay of heat"trapping gases with earth's natural climate systems. Ramanathan's work, which involves precise observations from the surface, satellite measurements, balloons and unmanned vehicles, has convinced him "that climate change is worse than what we get from the models."

The most recent UN report on climate change predicts that greenhouse gases already in circulation have committed the planet to a warming of 2.5 degrees. "No matter what we do today to reduce emissions, the planet will still heat up," says Ramanathan. But, through a quirk that Ramanathan has spent 10 years uncovering, the planet actually manifests only _ of the warming it should based on these climate models. Air pollution, specifically brown clouds from burning biomass, Ramanathan has learned, act as a global warming mask, reducing sunlight on the ground. "On the one hand, it has protected us, but also prevented us from seeing the full blast of the greenhouse effect," he says. "One of the dumbest things we can do is to reduce sunlight," because it reduces ocean evaporation, which cuts down on rainfall, and shifts weather systems everywhere, shrinking harvests and glaciers.

We are left with "Faustian bargains," says Ramanathan. If we cut airborne pollutants such as sulfur, the mask will drop, temperatures rise rapidly, and climate tipping elements come into play. Curing one ill causes another. Any plan for "dismantling the experiment we have done with blankets, mirrors and dust must be done as carefully as dismantling a nuclear device."

About the Speaker(s): Veerabhadran Ramanathan discovered the greenhouse effect of CFCs and numerous other manmade trace gases in the 1970s. He correctly forecast in 1980, along with R. Madden, that the global warming due to carbon dioxide would be detectable by the year 2000. He has worked with NASA to demonstrate the cooling effect of clouds on the planet, and the impacts of 'brown' clouds and greenhouse gases on rainfall,harvests of different types of crops, and the melting of glaciers.

Ramanathan currently chairs the UNEP_sponsored ABC Project with science team members from the USA, Europe, India, China, Japan, Korea and other Asian countries. He is the recipient of the American Meteorological Society's Rossby medal. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Sciences, the Academia Europea and the Third World Academy of Sciences. He currently chairs the US National Academy of Sciences panel that provides strategic advice to the US Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) which is a $2 billion/year inter_agency research program on climate change.

Ramanathan has published over 175 peer_reviewed articles in major journals. He is part of the Nobel Peace prize (2007) winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since its inception, and for the 2007 report served as one of the lead editors in IPCC_AR4 (2007), WG_I. He received his undergraduate and graduate education in India and earned his Ph. D. in planetary atmospheres from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Description: This panel offers some evidence that sustained alliances between academia and other organizations may help us more effectively address climate change issues.

In Sweden, Lennart Billfalk says, universities have historically cooperated with industry. In the 1980s, when interest in electrical engineering was waning, Billfalk's Vattenfall power company financed new labs and committed to extra teaching resources, spawning a whole new generation of electrical engineers attuned to key energy issues. In the 90s, the government and industry financed joint research centers, which are helping Sweden fulfill its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions 50% by 2030, and 80% by 2050. R&D from these collaborations has led to carbon capture and storage projects, and several CO2 free pilot power plants in Europe.

Ernest Moniz pegs several factors integral to the success of academic"industrial collaborations, including a long"term commitment from both sides --"think about programs, not projects"; the alignment of these programs with the corporation's strategic plan; and a joint steering mechanism. MIT tries to apply these principles to its Energy Initiative, bringing multidisciplinary teams from across campus to focus on research, education, campus energy management and public outreach (as an "honest broker" on climate change and energy issues). Moniz describes some flagship programs around coal conversion and carbon capture with MIT's key industry research partners, as well as a seed grant program funding bold ideas from across the campus; and fellowships encouraging students to direct their talent toward the energy innovation field.

The world's best endowed foundations are "missing from important fields" such as physics and the biosciences, and few have turned their attention to climate change, says Theodore Smith. And while academia has focused on the science and technology of climate change, it has not cultivated "a civic voice" to speak on these issues in the broader public discourse. Smith regrets this neglect, because there's a "yearning from those of us outside the academy to hear voices speaking in clear English." Smith's Henry Kendall Foundation seeks to promote greater communication between academia and the world at large. It also hopes to spark transformative change in Cambridge, by supporting a massive reduction in energy consumption that requires Harvard and MIT to play central roles.

Elizabeth Kolbert acknowledges "the pretty colossal failure over the last decade of communication on the issues of climate change and sustainability," and says there's plenty of blame to go around. Journalists hate complicated issues, and sustained the climate change "debate" long after it ceased to be a scientific argument. Scientists generated long, technical reports while maintaining neutrality and avoiding a policy agenda. The level of ignorance in Washington is staggering, says Kolbert, and the public simply tunes out when the story is climate change. Kolbert insists "we must challenge ourselves" as academicians and journalists. She suggests that MIT put a lot of effort into making its own campus a model for sustainability, a "bold step" that might garner public interest.

About the Speaker(s): Joanne Kauffman is an advisor to the Alliance for Global Sustainability and to other academic initiatives that support scientific research on sustainability, including the IR3S Program of the University of Tokyo and ETHSustainability at ETH"Zurich, Switzerland. A political scientist, Kauffman has taught international environmental politics and policy at MIT and lectured widely in North America, Europe and Asia on issues in sustainability. She has written many articles and papers on policies to promote sustainable development and is the author of two related books: Managing Chemicals in the Environment (Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, 1984) and (with Hideo Yoshikawa) Science Has No National Borders,, a study of the reconstruction of science in post"WWII Japan (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994).

She serves on the Board of Directors of The Energy Research Institute"North America (TERI"NA) and is the series editor for the Springer Publications series, Science and Technology: Tools for Sustainable Development. Kauffman is currently working with Boston"based artist and photographer Julie Graham on a visual and analytical examination of the linkages between landscape, memory, and culture. She lives in a small rural village in southern France

Description: John Sterman pokes holes through some popular proposals for addressing climate change, with sobering case studies that demonstrate why "technological solutions are not enough to address the problem of creating a sustainable world."

We are staking too much hope for a climate change fix on "the better mousetrap theory of innovation," says Sterman. It goes like this: New technology from places like MIT will drive down the cost of renewable energy, increase demand for carbon"free renewables and displace fossil fuels. New energy markets emerge, after a regulatory nudge or two from the government, or some incentives and emissions fees.

To demonstrate how completely wrong this theory is, Sterman first discusses great products never adopted by consumers, such as the Sony Betamax video recorder. More to the point, he notes current opportunities that would significantly reduce our carbon footprint yet have been ignored by society at large, such as improving fuel efficiency, and insulating buildings. Our rejection of these opportunities suggests we can't comprehend "the complexity of systems in which we are embedded and into which we deploy technologies," particularly the concept of feedback.

Sterman runs through a 'thought experiment' involving the introduction of a hydrogen"based, zero tailpipe emission alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) into California _ a conceivable leap toward creating an ecologically and economically sustainable transportation system. The government kick"starts the AFV market, rolling out fuel stations in urban centers, and essentially subsidizing the transition for a decade. You'd expect this AFV eventually to command at least 50% of the market share. But when Sterman runs his simulations, the AFV stagnates at around 25%.

It turns out that if fuel stations are not distributed through even the remotest parts of the state, people worry about where they'll find fuel, leading to weak demand for AFVs. This is "only one of the many reinforcing feedbacks which create strong barriers to the entry of technologies which are as good or better than incumbent technologies," says Sterman. Even an AFV with higher fuel efficiency can't win market share, Sterman's California simulations show.

The models offer some faint promise. When Sterman puts more fuel stations in rural areas, the AFV market succeeds -- after an extraordinarily long time. Sterman believes there's a tipping point in the adoption of new technologies. Dethroning gasoline will be difficult, he says, so we need to create multiple reinforcing feedbacks to change the behaviors of all the players. "We must push that ball, which represents where the market is, up a steep mountain, and only after crossing the peak will the market become self"sustaining."

About the Speaker(s): John D. Sterman's research includes systems thinking and organizational learning, computer simulation of corporate strategy, and the theory of nonlinear dynamics. He is the author of many scholarly and popular articles on the challenges and opportunities facing organizations today, including the book Modeling for Organizational Learning, and the award"winning textbook, Business Dynamics.

Sterman's research centers on improving managerial decision making in complex systems. He has pioneered the development of "management flight simulators" of corporate and economic systems.

Sterman has twice been awarded the Jay W. Forrester Prize for the best published work in system dynamics. He won a 2005 IBM Faculty Award, and the 2001 Accenture Award for the best paper of the year published in the California Management Review (with Nelson Repenning). He has five times won awards for teaching excellence from the students of the MIT Sloan School of Management, and was named one of the Sloan School's "Outstanding Faculty" by the 2001 Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools.

Description: The world is counting on the fulfillment of (Intel co"founder) Gordon Moore's Law for at least another half century. In Craig Barrett's view, solutions to the crucial challenges of our time depend on improving on already nano"sized microprocessors every few years.

He points to the astonishing improvements in efficiency and miniaturization in Intel's semiconductors, which around 1972 came loaded with 2,000 transistors that could be seen with the naked eye. Today's integrated circuits, 11 generations down the road, bear 1"2 billion transistors that can be seen only with a scanning electron microscope. Intel has had to make other improvements too, says Barrett, as they moved into the nanoscale, attempting to improve functionality and performance without power dissipation. Dual and quad core microprocessors now permit parallel computing within a single PC. Barrett recounts how the first teraflop computer he worked on at Sandia Labs required 10 thousand Pentium processors and took up 2,000 square feet. "The challenge is in the next six to eight years, going to exascale, getting up to a million teraflops," through multiple core processors, he says, and then there will be a "huge challenge in terms of software paradigms."

These changes must come, says Barrett, if the world is to confront its "grand challenges," such as making solar energy affordable, solving issues of carbon sequestration, and figuring out the hydrogen cycle. Those extra teraflops and exaflops will also prove essential to the next generations of visual computing, where scientists (and gamers) want the feel of HD reality on their computer screens. Barrett says silicon photonics will help pave the way for such improvements.

Barrett wants current and emerging technologies put to use as well in education, which he sees as fundamental to helping developing economies. He describes efforts Intel is making to get computers into classrooms around the world, as well as providing training in their use, and helping with broadband connectivity. He also wants computer power brought to bear on the U.S. healthcare scene, which he describes as more of a looming financial crisis than a bankrupt social security system. He's looking for a political candidate who sees the value of revamping healthcare to take advantage of electronic medical record"keeping, and personalized remote monitoring and diagnostics, "to shift the issue of healthcare from the hospital to individuals and the home."

About the Speaker(s): Craig Barrett joined Intel Corporation in 1974 as a technology development manager. He was named a vice president of the corporation in 1984, promoted to senior vice president in 1987, and executive vice president in 1990. He was elected to Intel Corporation's Board of Directors in 1992 and was named the company's chief operating officer in 1993. He became Intel's fourth president in May 1997, chief executive officer in 1998 and chairman of the Board on May 18, 2005.

Barrett serves as chairman of the United Nations Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies and Development, and is an appointee to the President's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations and to the American Health Information Community.

Barrett received his B.S. M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Materials Science from Stanford University. After graduation, he joined the faculty of Stanford University in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and remained through 1974, rising to the rank of Associate Professor. Barrett is the author of over 40 technical papers dealing with the influence of microstructure on the properties of materials, and a textbook on materials science, Principles of Engineering Materials.

Description: Rajendra K. Pachauri leads fellow members of the Nobel Prize"winning IPCC in a remarkable public session of soul"searching. Now that the IPCC has helped make climate change a signal issue of our times, what next?

John Reilly wonders whether the IPCC should be celebrating any success, given that greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise in spite of all the comprehensive study. Given the "dismal outcome so far," it's important that the IPCC "avoid the complacency that comes with big awards," and that "much, all of the work is still there to be done.".

"It's probably time for sunset, Michael Golay suggests." Now that the IPCC has succeeded in establishing climate change as "a reality among at least the chattering classes," the next step is actually a social question, one that is much more difficult than coming up with new technologies. "We're really talking about interfering with markets, and doing this in a way that doesn't become simply another vehicle for creating profits for special interests."

William Moomaw believes IPCC reports have made possible policy and corporate innovations that would have been unthinkable only a decade ago, and the IPCC should continue to serve in an advisory capacity to the world, laying out the technological and economic possibilities. Says Moomaw, "We got off to a bad start. We talked about global warming as being an environmental issue when in fact global warming is a symptom of maldevelopment.

The IPCC "should continue as the voice of science and help a well"informed society make tough decisions," declares Andreas Fischlin . This will mean "facing the issue of sustainability in the context of climate change to an extent many of us won't like." Research challenges in developing nations may impede efforts to "optimize the IPCC's work and help in the whole issue of moving toward a more sustainable world."

Akimasa Sumi believes IPCC should continue to have a powerful role in the future, because the "climate change issue is driven by science." He proposes refining climate models in the hope of reducing uncertainty around such matters as the role of aerosols and clouds. He says the focus must now be on adaptation and mitigation, particularly over a 30"year time scale.

The IPCC established its relevance because it drew a line between being policy relevant and policy prescriptive, says Adil Najam. Now, "we need to claim victory on understanding the mechanics of the science and stop debating." The next step must mean "focusing not on the scope of the problem, but on potential for solutions." .

Should the IPCC attempt to become more prescriptive, believes Howard Herzog, "it would lose respect." In his years with the organization, "anytime we got into policy prescriptive areas, when we got close to the line, tensions rose, arguments intensified, we lost consensus." He thinks it's important to continue the IPCC's work, because the science will change, and we need a "broker out there to summarize where science is on critical issues."

About the Speaker(s): Rajendra Pachauri was elected Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2002. He has been involved in the work of the IPCC since its Second Assessment Report in 1995, as a Lead Author. He was then Vice"President of the IPCC during the Third Assessment Report.

Pachauri has been the head of TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute, since
its establishment 25 years ago. TERI focuses on scientific and technological research and strategic thinking in the fields of energy, environment, forestry, biotechnology, conservation of natural resources and sustainable development.

Pachauri was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India in January 2001, one of India's highest civilian awards. He was also awarded the "Officier De La L_gion D'Honneur" by the Government of France in 2006.

Pachauri was a Research Fellow at The World Bank, Washington, DC in 1990. He also served as adviser to the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) in the fields of energy and sustainable management of natural resources from 1994 till 1999. At the international level, he has been President of the Asian Energy Institute since 1992.

Pachauri earned an M.S. in Industrial Engineering, a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Economics from North Carolina State University.

Description: The rising public awareness of climate change, says MIT President Susan Hockfield, comes with a price. "The public dialogue has evolved from nothing is wrong, so we need to do nothing, to everything is so wrong, that there's nothing we can do." Citizens are "starving for a sense of focus, clarity and direction," and with that in mind, MIT and other organizations "need to speak louder," declares Hockfield, by elevating the public debate, telling the truth about the power and limitations of technology, and focusing on the harsh reality that the scale of a proposed solution can "doom a clever idea to nothing more than a dilettante's distraction."

Here's Rajendra K. Pachauri's panic"inducing assertion: We have a window of seven years to stabilize CO2 at today's levels if we are to limit our global mean temperature increase to around 2.40C. A world this hot would be a very unpleasant place to be. Pachauri lays out
unequivocal" evidence of climate change, and describes how extreme precipitation events, heat waves and other natural catastrophes will become more frequent, endangering vast swaths of humanity. We stand to lose 20"30% of species if warming exceeds 1.5 to 2.5 0C. Pachauri also notes this "scary prospect": the rapid loss of ice sheets on polar land, leading to sea level rises of several meters, and the flight of large populations in response. br>
Pachauri describes the kinds of adaptations humanity must make to the changes already underway, including protection from flooding; preventing water scarcity; and retooling agriculture. Developed nations have a head start in these, and must help out developing nations, or risk global conflicts. Yet adaptation alone "cannot cope with all the projected impacts of climate change," says Pachauri, so greenhouse gas mitigation efforts are urgent. In the midst of this desperate panorama, Pachauri holds out some hope: "Anyone who says, what's the point, why take action-if we start today, we can really make a difference in the next two to three decades."

What's more, we have at hand a portfolio of technologies that are currently or soon to be available that could achieve significant mitigation, he says. If we invest in public transport and efficient vehicles, the right kinds of R&D, technology transfers and incentives, we could achieve our goals. And he notes, the cost of taking such actions "are not high at all." To stabilize CO2 at around 500 PPM, the costs in 2030 would be less than 3% global GDP, which amounts to a minuscule .12% annually. About the Speaker(s): Rajendra Pachauri was elected Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2002. He has been involved in the work of the IPCC since its Second
Assessment Report in 1995, as a Lead Author. He was then Vice"President of the IPCC during the Third Assessment Report.

Pachauri has been the head of TERI, The Energy and Resources Institute, since
its establishment 25 years ago. TERI focuses on scientific and technological research and strategic thinking in the fields of energy, environment, forestry, biotechnology, conservation of natural resources and sustainable development.

Pachauri was awarded the Padma Bhushan by the President of India in January 2001, one of India's highest civilian awards. He was also awarded the "Officier De La L_gion D'Honneur" by the Government of France in 2006.

Pachauri was a Research Fellow at The World Bank, Washington, DC in 1990. He also served as adviser to the Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme
(UNDP) in the fields of energy and sustainable management of natural resources from 1994 till 1999. At the international level, he has been President of the Asian Energy Institute since 1992.

Pachauri earned an M.S. in Industrial Engineering, a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Economics from North Carolina State University.

Host(s): Office of the President, MIT Energy Initiative

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Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:23:38 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16335-how-would-climate-change-influence-society-in-the-21st-century
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16335-how-would-climate-change-influence-society-in-the-21st-century
How Would Climate Change Influence Society in the 21st Century?
MIT World — special events and lectures Climate Change: The Economics of and Prospects for a Global Deal
Sir Nicholas Stern, Professor of Economics, London School of Economics

Description: From Nicholas Stern's market perspective, climate change constitutes an "externality" that, like traffic grid lock in a city center, arises when some people's actions affect the welfare of others, at no cost to the perpetrators. Simple price mechanisms can fix congestion, says Stern, but climate change, which he views as "the greatest market failure the world has ever seen," requires unprecedented measures to contend with its potentially cataclysmic, long"term global impacts.

Stern is the author of an influential and provocative review prepared for the British government describing the economics of climate change and development. Here he outlines, in non"technical jargon, the key issues, choices and potential responses of a world facing warming.

Scientific modeling suggests that if nations continue on their present course, the Earth will move from CO2 levels of around 450 parts per million (ppm) today to over 800 ppm a century from now. That could bring a 5o C change, says Stern, accompanied by storms, droughts, and sea level rise, which would trigger massive human migration and "severe conflict." While totting up the costs of such a scenario is nearly unimaginable, Stern has more of a handle on the "scale of damage" -- disruptions to economic and social activity -- a 3o C increase might inflict. This is the kind of increase that many climate models suggest will come if we manage to stabilize CO2levels at 550 ppm.

Stern argues that if we don't act to rein in greenhouse gases to such a target, the costs to the global GDP will exceed 5% each year, forever. ( If the impacts of a 3o C increase have been underestimated, the costs might rise to 20% GDP, or more.) If nations think of this as "an insurance problem," says Stern, they ought to be willing to invest 1%"2% of their current GDP in reducing emissions and achieving stabilization in the next 10"20 years. This is the timeframe societies have to put into play appropriate policies for carbon pricing, new technologies for conservation and non"carbon based energies. What's needed, says Stern, is a global deal, a framework of understanding that guides all nations of the world. His six"point plan relies on rich nations acknowledging their obligation to reduce carbon emissions by greater amounts than developing nations; funding efforts to develop and share technologies, and to tackle deforestation; and monies to help needier nations adapt to change. Stern sees some evidence that the international community -- perhaps even the U.S. _ is positively inclined toward cutting a global deal.

About the Speaker(s): Sir Nicholas Stern served as Adviser to the UK Government on the Economics of Climate Change and Development, and reported to the Prime Minister from 2003"2007. He was Head of the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change.

Previously, Stern was Head of the Government Economic Service. From 2003"2005, he was Second Permanent Secretary to Her Majesty's Treasury and from 2004"2005, Director of Policy and Research for the Prime Minister's Commission for Africa. From 2000"2003, Stern was World Bank Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, Development Economics. From 1994 until late 1999, he served as Chief Economist and Special Counsellor to the President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

His most recent book Growth & Empowerment: Making Development Happen was published in April 2005. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change was published in October 2006 (http://www.sternreview.org.uk). He has published more than 100 articles.

Nicholas Stern is a Fellow of the British Academy (July 1993), Foreign Honorary Membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1998). He received a B.A. from Cambridge University (Mathematics), and a D.Phil. from Oxford University (Economics).

Description: The pace of global carbon emissions may be such that humanity's best efforts to stabilize them below current levels by 2050 won't be enough to prevent a significant increase in Earth's temperatures. Margaret Leinen, drawing on the U.N.'s recent climate reports, and the latest research from the field, shows the dire graph: a red line of CO2 emissions marching steadily upward, with accompanying graphics depicting hoped"for impacts of international efforts to mitigate greenhouse gas release.

The current global abatement "wedges" consist of technologies not yet developed or widely deployed, such as energy efficiencies, cellulosic biofuels, solar, wind, and nuclear. Leinen notes that most of the abatement in renewables "comes into play 20"30 years out," and the "reality is there will be increases in CO2 in the atmosphere for the next 20"30 years while we try to address the problem." Policy makers have not begun to grapple with the notion of delayed onset of emissions, says Leinen. Among scientists, there's growing concern that "we're going to be dealing with catch"up for a long enough time that we will suffer the consequences of emissions regardless of whether we put policies in place."

These projections suggest to some scientists that we must take more radical, immediate steps and geoengineer our way out of global warming. But other scientists, says Leinen, are loath to discuss these approaches, much less let them see the light of day. Carbon capture and sequestration, "viewed as necessary mechanisms for emissions reductions by some" says Leinen, and which have captured the interest of politicians, are viewed by another scientific camp "as soft engineering, or geoengineering light." When a Nobel scientist wrote an article proposing the use of stratospheric aerosols to decrease sunlight hitting the earth, alarmed scientists lobbied prestigious journals not to publish it. Leinen's own area of research, ocean iron fertilization, attempts to stimulate phytoplankton activity, which would help sop up atmospheric CO2. These approaches all face opposition because of their possible, negative impacts. But, says Leinen, these arguments "ignore the fact that we're faced with a situation in which we must have an entire portfolio of activities" for reducing CO2. She worries that lack of discourse, or constant dispute will put scientists in a position "where policy makers want to move to (the new) techniques and we won't have studied them sufficiently to provide good scientific answers about whether they work."

About the Speaker(s): Prior to her appointment at Climos, Inc., Margaret Leinen was Assistant Director for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation. She also served as the Co"Chair of the Joint Subcommittee on Ocean Science and Technology, the federal interagency committee that coordinates ocean science among the participating federal agencies and she served as Vice"Chair of the Subcommittee on Global Change/Climate Change Science Program, the federal interagency committee that coordinates global change science among the participating federal agencies.

Before serving at NSF, Leinen was Dean, Graduate School of Oceanography and Vice Provost for Marine and Environmental Programs at the University of Rhode Island. She was also Acting Dean, College of the Environment and Life Sciences.

Leinen is past president of The Oceanography Society. She served on the Board of Governors of the Joint Oceanographic Institutions, Inc., on the Board of Directors of the Bermuda Biological Station for Research and on and the Ocean Research Advisory Council. Leinen also served as the Vice Chair of the International Geosphere"Biosphere Programme and on the Board on Global Change of the National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Geological Society of America.

Leinen received her B.S. degree (1969) in Geology from the University of Illinois; M.S. (1975) in Geological Oceanography from Oregon State University; and Ph.D. (1980) in Geological Oceanography from the University of Rhode Island.

Description: In 1845, the Dietz Company of New York introduced the sperm oil lantern, which nearly wiped out some whale species. A decade or so later, Dietz began to manufacture lamps using other oils, and gas lighting fixtures, giving whales a reprieve. More than a century has passed, and we're "about to do it again," says Daniel Nocera, consuming a precious resource and endangering this time not whales but our world. Nocera wonders, "What will be the savior," the answer that will save the entire planet?

He ticks off the grim details of our fossil fuel habit -- how the world is rapidly moving from its energy consumption of 12.8 terawatts per year, to 28 terawatts by 2050. This is a simple calculation, Nocera tells us, requiring only population, GDP per capita and energy intensity. The upshot, unfortunately, is that though we do have enough carbon"based energy (oil, methane, coal) to last all of us quite a while, the CO2 we're emitting may choke off our current way of life long before the end of the fuel.

Nocera advises his audience to put aside dreams that biomass or nuclear energy will give us what we need. Plaster the entire planet with crops we can convert to energy, and you'd still only get seven to 10 terawatts. And you'd "need one nuclear plant every 1.6 days for the next 45 years" to get eight terawatts of power. "There aren't enough whales to get there in 45 years," says Nocera.

His alternative for saving the planet is "far from pragmatism and reality." Nocera's ultimate solution seems almost magical: "water plus light equals oil." The proposal is to emulate photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert the energy of sunlight to fuel. Scientists are racing to design structures that can catch light the way a leaf does, then capture the energy of this light using chemical bonds, and then somehow store this energy. Some researchers are focusing on photobiological water splitting. Nocera's group is working "on a wireless current, an artificial leaf." While the goal "is to see what nature's structures tell you," Nocera acknowledges that "if you try to place what's in nature in a beaker, it probably won't work."

There's massive urgency to working out the basic science of solar energy conversion. Forget 2050, says Nocera. "Science has got to get it done in the next 10 years, because it will take an enormous amount of time to implement".

About the Speaker(s): In 2005, Daniel Nocera was awarded the Italgas Prize, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Nocera has received the American Institute of Chemists Award, and was appointed a Presidential Young Investigator and an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow.

He serves on the Editorial Boards of Accounts of Chemical Research, Inorganic Chemistry, Journal of the American Chemical Society and Comments in Inorganic Chemistry. He was the inaugural Editor of Inorganic Chemistry Communications.

Nocera received his B.S. in 1970 from Rutgers University, and his Ph.D. from CalTech in 1984. He joined MIT in 1997.

Description: If you'd asked Ronald Prinn a decade ago whether human activity played a significant part in global warming, he would have given you an "equivocal" answer. Today, he is no longer straddling the line, and indeed, has amassed forceful evidence that post"industrial society has brought about enormous change in earth systems, and may cause irreparable damage as this century progresses.

Prinn provides a short lesson on radiative forcing -- the process by which the earth absorbs solar radiation and gives off energy by emitting infrared radiation. These processes, which should be in balance, increasingly are not, due to manmade activities that trap the heat from the sun, and drive up the earth's temperature. Prinn comes armed with MIT's Integrated Global System Model, which helps show how human industry, agriculture and consumption feed into the delicate, interconnected physical and biological workings of atmosphere, ocean and earth. Forecasting the climate into the future, says Prinn, "is no longer a job for the natural sciences, but for a combination of natural and social sciences."

Prinn's illustrations depicting how human activity and earth systems interact are almost comically complex, and he acknowledges that his models must take into account major uncertainties. Clouds, ocean mixing and aerosols act as wild cards in terms of radiative forcing. However, observation of earth's climate over millennia, and the running of computer simulations hundreds of times, have yielded some probabilities that Prinn believes policy makers must contend with.

Even assuming that civilization can limit its carbon dioxide emissions to twice preindustrial levels (550 parts per million), some very dramatic shifts will happen (or have already begun): the poles will heat up much faster than other parts of the world, melting ice and raising sea levels. Arctic tundra and soil will thaw and release methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas even than carbon dioxide. Another possibility: The ocean will reach its limit in absorbing atmospheric CO2, and, to put it bluntly, begin to die.

There are things we can and should do, says Prinn, if we want to avoid playing roulette with life on earth, and these actions are not priced beyond our means. We can make our transportation and building energy costs more efficient. We can continue to use coal if we figure out how to capture and store carbon underground. We'll need to develop biofuels. Bills in Congress seeking to achieve 50"80% reductions in carbon emissions below 1990 levels won't cripple our economy, Prinn's models show. "Bottom line, we can afford this."

About the Speaker(s): Ronald Prinn's research interests incorporate the chemistry, dynamics, and physics of the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets, and the chemical evolution of atmospheres. He is currently involved in a wide range of projects in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry, planetary science, climate science, and integrated assessment of science and policy regarding climate change.

He leads the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), in which the rates of change of the concentrations of the trace gases involved in the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion have been measured continuously over the globe for the past two decades. He is pioneering the use of inverse methods, which use such measurements and three"dimensional models to determine trace gas emissions and understand atmospheric chemical processes, especially those processes involving the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. Prinn is also working extensively with social scientists to link the science and policy aspects of global change. He has made significant contributions to the development of national and international scientific research programs in global change.

Prinn is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a recipient of AGU's Macelwane Medal, and a Fellow of the AAAS. He co"authored Planets and their Atmospheres: Origin and Evolution, and edited Global Atmospheric"Biospheric Chemistry. Prinn received his Sc.D. in 1971 from MIT; and his M.S. and B.S. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Description: For agricultural interests the world over, climate change is not a dim threat, but a reality with diverse long and short"term impacts, believes Cynthia Rosenzweig.

Without the agricultural revolution of eight to 10 thousand years ago, there would be far fewer people and "we'd all be out hunting and gathering." The food surpluses that came from cultivation of crops and domestication of livestock "allowed the development of civilization as we know it," says Rosenzweig. Agriculture has grown into a vast and varied enterprise globally, and now contributes its fair share to global warming. Greenhouse emissions began not 200 but thousands of years ago, with the clearing of land and forests, and the intensive planting of certain crops. Today, more than a third of nitrous oxide emissions are due to fertilizer use; farm energy needs and food transportation spews out carbon dioxide; and the rise of the factory feedlot and rice plantations have given us huge increases in methane.

Citing the latest models from international research groups, Rosenzweig offers projections of the impacts of climate change on agriculture. By the end of this century, the higher latitudes should expect more precipitation, the lower latitudes less. As we "march through time getting warmer," the increases in CO2 will initially be better for crops, because it will increase photosynthesis. Regions with short growing seasons may see them lengthened, so for instance, Finnish farmers will be pleased they can plant early spring potatoes (which fetch a premium price).

But droughts and floods will become more frequent, and the change in seasonality will put great stress on irrigation schemes and planting schedules. A single, powerful hit during a growing season can destroy a crop. And expect "weeds and critters to change in response to the changing climate," says Rosenzweig. Pests are already expanding their ranges. Not surprisingly, the most vulnerable to these fluctuations are developing countries, where greater populations are dependent on agriculture.

Warming in the last 30 years has already begun to affect the health of food crops and their yields across the globe. Strategies for solutions must involve both mitigation to reduce long"term risk, and adaptation to current conditions, says Rosenzweig. So we must turn to biofuels and reduce CO2 and methane emissions, while figuring out how to cushion crops against drought and flood, bioengineering those that can manage higher temperatures. In this way, climate change can function as "a transformative issue by which agricultural sustainability may be achieved."

About the Speaker(s): Cynthia Rosenzweig heads the Climate Impacts Group at the Goddard Institute. She has organized and led large"scale interdisciplinary regional, national, and international studies of climate change impacts and adaptation. She is a Coordinating Lead Author of the chapter on observed changes for the IPCC Working Group II Fourth Assessment Report, and served on the IPCC Task Group on Data and Scenarios for Impact and Climate Assessment (TGICA).

Rosenzweig's research involves the development of interdisciplinary methodologies by which to assess the potential impacts of and adaptations to global environmental change. A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she has joined impact models with global and regional climate models to predict future outcomes of both land"based and urban systems under altered climate conditions. She is a Professor of Environmental Science at Barnard College and a Senior Research Scientist at the Columbia Earth Institute.

Rosenzweig received a B.S.in Agricultural Sciences, 1980, from Cook College; an M.S. in Soils and Crops, 1983, from Rutgers University; and a Ph.D.in Plant, Soil and Environmental Sciences, in 1991, from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Host(s): School of Science, Center for Global Change Science

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Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:41:21 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16307-climate-variability-and-change-and-their-impact-on-the-global-harvest
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16307-climate-variability-and-change-and-their-impact-on-the-global-harvest
Climate Variability and Change and their Impact on the Global Harvest
MIT World — special events and lectures Electrons, Life and the Evolution of the Oxygen Cycle on Earth
Paul G. Falkowski, Board of Governors Professor of Geological and Marine Science in the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Rutgers University

Description: Peeling away billions of years of the Earth's history, Paul Falkowski reveals how our watery and rocky world underwent a massive transformation to become oxygen"rich and biologically diverse. He elucidates the complex geochemical and geophysical processes underlying the "Story of O" _ how oxygen made its appearance on the planet.
While scientists know that photosynthesis is responsible for the air we breathe, "We don't understand how the reaction fundamentally works," says Falkowski. "It's one of the most enigmatic electron transfer reactions in biology." Just splitting water "doesn't give you free oxygen on the planet. " Yet somehow, on an almost unimaginable timescale, organisms with the help of the sun have been producing atmospheric oxygen, and that oxygen is in equilibrium with other gases.
Falkowski's explanation for this alchemy involves the Wilson Cycle, where silica"rich rocks thick with organic matter get pushed up from the ocean onto land. This process, which probably first occurred three billion years ago, enabled the evolution of oxygenic photosynthesis, says Falkowski. By means of "mass independent fractionation of sulfur isotopes," the creation of ozone, and nitrogen fixing, the Earth witnessed "a great oxidation event" around 2.3 billion years ago, triggering a shift from anaerobic to an aerobic environment in the oceans.
Suddenly (geologically speaking), the conditions were ripe for life. In Falkowski's words, this was the "big flip." The right ocean chemistries encouraged the emergence of primitive biological cycles. Ocean"based bacteria and other simple life forms developed the photosynthetic machinery for feeding themselves, generating oxygen and recycling nitrogen and phosphorus. In the last 200 million years, oxygen production climbed, leading to a proliferation of life forms. The rise of large placental mammals can be seen as the "evolutionary consequence of the rise of oxygen," says Falkowski.
But the delicately balanced metabolic processes on which life depends are now moving out of equilibrium, he says. "In the last 150 years, humans have extracted huge amounts of buried organic matter and consumed it at unprecedented rates in recent geological memory. The result is a change in temperature of the Earth and atmospheric concentrations of CO2." The glaciers are going. Falkowski sees a faint hope for the planet if humans can figure out how to scale up such biochemical reactions as hydrogen generation from the splitting of water or creation of fuels from cellulose.

About the Speaker(s): Paul G. Falkowski studied biology at the City College of the City University of New York (B.S. and M.A.) and obtained a Ph. D. in Biology and Biophysics at the University of British Columbia, Canada in 1975. Soon afterwards, he became Senior Scientist at the Brookhaven National Laboratory and Adjunct Professor at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He served as Head of Oceanographic Sciences Division, Brookhaven National Laboratory in 1987"1991. In 1998 he joined Rutgers University as a professor at the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences and at the Department of Geology.

Falkowski has researched phytoplankton both in culture and in the field. This approach allows photosynthesis to be surveyed over large temporal and spatial scales. He has shed light on the influence of the oceans on the primary production of the biosphere.
He has advised NASA, the Department of Energy, and the Office of Naval Research.

Falkowski is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow.

Description: In this valedictory panel to the two"day symposium, 10 speakers offer brief takes on how the Second Law of Thermodynamics might prove useful in seeking answers to our current energy challenge.

Even before the oil embargo of 1973, Thomas Widmer recalls, Joe Keenan and his MIT colleagues wrote of an "entropy crisis." They analyzed the flow of work in industries and saw great inefficiencies that became crippling when fuel prices spiked. Despite 30 years of improvement, says Widmer, "the effectiveness of energy use is still less than 12%." In selling ideas to policy makers, he advises, talk about "energy productivity" rather than conservation.

Ernest S. Geskin doesn't believe alternative energies will be viable quickly enough to make a serious difference in climate change, so his objective is to improve combustion. He outlines several methods he's developing that increase the availability of generated heat, reduce heat losses, and integrate combustion with materials production and processing, such as in steelmaking.

James Keck says that "improving the efficiency and reducing emissions of auto engines and power plant burners requires an ability to model hydrocarbon combustion." He recommends using a method "firmly based on the Second Law of Thermodynamics: the rate controlled constrained equilibrium method," which, among other advantages, generates fewer equations, and is applicable to any separable system.

Seeking ways to make reactions more efficient and "less exergy destructive," Noam Lior recommends a detailed, top"down methodology. His lab has been examining oil droplet and coal combustion in an attempt to understand why exergy losses take place, and to determine "which process will give us the highest exergy efficiency."

Debjyoti Banerjee's research focuses on enhanced cooling and explosives sensing. His lab explores phase changes for boiling and condensation, and develops new models in molecular dynamics, harnessing the energy of nanosphere transport processes. A "nanobubble" serves as a heat engine, and Banerjee is examining how "nanofins help in transferring heat."

Richard Peterson is taking a look "at how small you might be able to make the classic thermodynamic heat engine, so you could integrate it into portable equipment or other devices requiring power, and burn fuel with much higher energy density than found in a battery." He notes that "your efficiency takes a nosedive as you shrink the engine."

Erik Ydstie is concerned with dynamic systems like power plants, and how they can be improved, by manipulating their inputs and outputs. By designing better controls to regulate these complex systems, there's a "lot of scope to improve the efficiencies of these plants. You could get quite a bit of mileage by running them better."

Ron Zevenhoven "presents the embryo of an idea: Can the infrared radiation that causes the enhanced greenhouse effect be put to better use?" He wants to see whether science can modify the infrared radiation that leaves the earth, in order to cut back on radiative forcing higher up.

Zhuomin Zhang discusses radiation entropy and how near"field thermophotovoltaic devices "may be another way of effectively using energy." He wonders how to apply the entropy concept to near"field radiation when interference is a problem.

Ahmed Ghoniem says that while we won't run out of cheap fossil fuels for some time, "we need to think about an insurance policy" in response to the predictions of a four to six degree rise in Earth's temperature by the end of the century. "The dirty little secret is once you burn the fuel you automatically generate entropy -- you lose about 20% right off the bat." Ghoniem asks whether "combustion and heat engines can be reinvented to reduce entropy generation, practically and at scale."

About the Speaker(s): Seth Lloyd received a Ph.D. in Physics from Rockefeller University, under the supervision of Heinz Pagels.

He was a postdoctoral fellow in the High Energy Physics Department at the California Institute of Technology, where he worked with Murray Gell"Mann on applications of information to quantum"mechanical systems. He was a postdoctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he worked at the Center for Nonlinear Systems on quantum computation. Since 1988, Lloyd has also been an adjunct faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute.br>
Lloyd is a principal investigator at the Research Laboratory of Electronics. He has performed seminal work in the fields of quantum computation and quantum communications, including proposing the first technologically feasible design for a quantum computer, demonstrating the viability of quantum analog computation, proving quantum analogs of Shannon's noisy channel theorem, and designing novel methods for quantum error correction and noise reduction.

Lloyd is a member of the American Physical Society and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Host(s): School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering

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Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:18:20 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16289-the-second-law-and-energy-panel
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16289-the-second-law-and-energy-panel
The Second Law and Energy Panel
MIT World — special events and lectures The Second Law and Energy
Steven Chu, Secretary of Energy

Description: This Nobel Prize"winning scientist admits to staying up late the night before his talk to bone up on thermodynamics. He puts his research to good use, discussing the history and application of the laws of thermodynamics, which have served as "the scientific foundation of how we harness energy, and the basis of the industrial revolution, the wealth of nations."

Taking Watt's 1765 steam engine, Stephen Chu illustrates basic principles of thermodynamics -- that energy is conserved, that you can do work from heat, especially when you maximize the difference in temperature in the system and minimize heat dissipation from friction. Chu offers another form of the laws: You can't win; you can't break even; and you can't leave the game.

The game hasn't changed all that much in the past few centuries. Nations now burn coal for electricity, achieving around 40% thermal efficiency. Natural gas can be harnessed at higher efficiencies still, and if we could deploy temperature"resistant metals for boilers, even less energy would go to waste. This is a pressing matter, points out Chu, because the planet can no longer afford wanton use of carbon"based fuels. With too much CO2, our global "heat engine" has begun to tip toward a point of no return. So the big question for Chu is whether science can design "entropy engines that can generate sustainable (carbon"free) energy sources.

He describes efforts to capture sunlight with improved solar cells, but notes that a silicon shortage, expensive chips, and a learning curve dictated by Moore's law mean the technology won't be widely deployed for 10"15 years -- not fast enough in the battle against climate change. Chu likes the efficiencies of power generation from wind, but there's a limit to turbine size, and the U.S. high voltage transmission network needs a complete and expensive makeover to take full advantage of wind. Forget corn as biofuel, he counsels, since it "barely breaks even in terms of CO2 saved," and focus instead on perennial grasses like miscanthus. Chu's lab and others are looking for microbes that can help turn these plants more readily into fuels.

Another potentially rich energy source, Chu says, involves converting sun light into fuel the way plants do in photosynthesis. But "how does nature split water?" asks Chu. Science hasn't entirely figured out the molecular machinery that turns water into oxygen and hydrogen. Deriving bioenergy through artificial photosynthesis may mean considering entropy and other basic laws in a different light, Chu suggests. "Nature turns out to be very good."

About the Speaker(s): Steven Chu joined the Physics Department faculty at U.C. Berkeley in 2004. Previously, Chu had been a Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Prior to 1987, he was at Bell Laboratories where he conducted the research that led to his 1997 Nobel Prize in physics, which he shared with Claude Cohen"Tannoudji and William D. Phillips, for methods to cool and trap atoms with laser light.

Chu is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academia Sinica, and is a foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and of the Korean Academy of Science and Engineering.

He serves on the Boards of the Hewlett Foundation, the University of Rochester, and NVIDIA. He served on the Augustine Committee that produced the report "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" in 2006.

Chu received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976 and was a post"doctoral fellow there until 1978. He got his B.S. in 1970 from the University of Rochester.

Host(s): School of Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering

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Wed, 14 Dec 2011 14:15:55 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16288-the-second-law-and-energy
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16288-the-second-law-and-energy
The Second Law and Energy
MIT World — special events and lectures Climate and Energy: Uncertainties in Forecasts and the Problems of Scale
Ronald Prinn, SCD '71, TEPCO Professor of Atmospheric Science, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences

Description: When Ron Prinn spins one -Wheel of Fortune," he arrives at a one in four chance of the Earth warming up at least 3 degrees centigrade, and the beginning of an irreversible melting of polar ice sheets. When he spins the other wheel, the odds of this level of dangerous warming fall to one in 40. The first wheel, Prinn suggests, represents the risks involved in doing nothing about climate change. The second wheel is attainable only by enacting a climate policy that stabilizes carbon dioxide levels in the near future.
Prinn arrives at this casino scenario by way of an enormously complex climate model, the Integrated Global System Model (IGSM), which takes into account manmade and natural activities forcing climate change, to generate a -probability range of forecasts." Data come from measuring variables in the atmosphere, ocean, and land ecosystems, as well as from human emissions. GDP, energy use, policy costs, agricultural and health impacts get factored in as well.
Research using 400-thousand-year-old ice samples shows that while temperatures and greenhouse gases have fluctuated, the temperatures today are the highest in the last 1200 years. 1998 and 2005 were the warmest years ever recorded. Given the current rise in carbon dioxide levels, polar regions are warming up at much faster rates than other parts of the world, which will exacerbate warming. As ocean ice melts, there's less sunlight reflected back and more heat trapped at the poles; tundra thawing will release more gases as well. There are feedbacks in the system: small changes in gases such as methane can trigger very rapid changes in temperature.
Prinn admits to big uncertainties in the IGSM: clouds, which play a large role, are difficult to model. There are also uncertainties about emissions, and ocean-mixing, the churning of cooler and warmer waters, which can bring carbon buried on the ocean floor to the surface. Prinn's caveat is -never seriously believe any single forecast of the climate going into the future." However, by running the IGSM hundreds of thousands of times to estimate the probability of various amounts of climate change, Prinn and colleagues are, -in the Monte Carlo sense, building up a set of forecasts on which we can put a measure of the odds of being correct or incorrect."
If we want better odds, we'll need to prevent any major increase in carbon dioxide emissions from current levels (and no more than twice preindustrial levels). This is a tall order, given the growth of developing countries and the anemic response by the U.S. and other countries to the gathering crisis. Prinn adds to this dismal picture, noting that new energy solutions must permit scaling up on a global basis. -To get three terawatts out of windmills, you'd need 21 million of the current-style windmills." Solutions that look good on a small scale -may be going in the wrong direction on a large scale."

About the Speaker(s): Ronald Prinn's research interests incorporate the chemistry, dynamics, and physics of the atmospheres of the Earth and other planets, and the chemical evolution of atmospheres. He is currently involved in a wide range of projects in atmospheric chemistry and biogeochemistry, planetary science, climate science, and integrated assessment of science and policy regarding climate change.

He leads the Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment (AGAGE), in which the rates of change of the concentrations of the trace gases involved in the greenhouse effect and ozone depletion have been measured continuously over the globe for the past two decades. He is pioneering the use of inverse methods, which use such measurements and three-dimensional models to determine trace gas emissions and understand atmospheric chemical processes, especially those processes involving the oxidation capacity of the atmosphere. Prinn is also working extensively with social scientists to link the science and policy aspects of global change. He has made significant contributions to the development of national and international scientific research programs in global change.

Prinn is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), a recipient of AGU's Macelwane Medal, and a Fellow of the AAAS. He co-authored Planets and their Atmospheres: Origin and Evolution, and edited Global Atmospheric-Biospheric Chemistry. Prinn received his Sc.D. in 1971 from MIT; and his M.S. and B.S. from the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Host(s): Office of the President, Energy Research Council

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Tue, 13 Dec 2011 18:44:15 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16204-climate-and-energy-uncertainties-in-forecasts-and-the-problems-of-scale
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16204-climate-and-energy-uncertainties-in-forecasts-and-the-problems-of-scale
Climate and Energy: Uncertainties in Forecasts and the Problems of Scale
MIT World — special events and lectures The Invisible Forest: Microbes in the Sea
Sallie Chisholm, Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of Environmental Studies and Professor of Biology, MIT

Description: After listening to Penny Chisholm, you'll view pond scum or aquarium slime in a different light. In fact, Chisholm aims to instill a sense of reverence and concern for the organisms behind this phenomenon, which turn out to be blue-green algae. They're part of a family of microbes called phytoplanktons that are essential to the earth's health.
Chisholm sketches the history of phytoplanktons, which first emerged on earth 3.5 billion years ago, and created the oxygen in our atmosphere that made possible all other plant and animal life. -They can live perfectly well without us," says Chisholm, -but we can't live without them." Energized by sunlight, phytoplankton are the ultimate recyclers. Chisholm's research focus, Prochlorococcus, discovered in 1985, plays a supremely important role in climate control. The smallest and most abundant photosynthetic cell on the planet, it takes carbon from the atmosphere and deposits it safely to the ocean floor.
We must stop viewing all microbes as bad guys, Chisholm says, and instead, start to worry about the collective health of the organisms that regulate the world's metabolism. Those hard at work clearing our air of global warming gases may not fare so well as the earth heats up. When ocean temperatures rise, Chisholm says, waters get more stratified, and this may make photosynthesis more difficult for the microbes. There are proposed attempts to manipulate or work around phytoplanktons _ such as ocean fertilization or deep-sea injection of CO2 _ but Chisholm is deeply skeptical. We may end up sucking oxygen out of the water and creating dead zones in the ocean -that release methane, nitrous oxide and other wonderful greenhouse gases that molecule for molecule, prove more powerful than CO2 in absorbing solar energy," she warns.
Science has only just begun to study the world's microorganisms. Just .1% of all microbes have been cultured, and who knows what other kinds of unique and essential properties we'll find when we start looking, says Chisholm. It's time we begin -to build the knowledge necessary to predict, regulate and sustain these vital functions of earth systems for future generations," she says.

About the Speaker(s): In addition to her other appointments, Penny Chisholm currently serves as co-director of Terrascope, an MIT learning community for freshmen. She is also a visiting scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. From 1988-1995, she served as the MIT Director of the MIT/Woods Hole Joint Program in Oceanography.

Chisholm received the 2005 Huntsman Award for Excellence in Marine Science, and is a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Investigator in Marine Science. She has published papers in PNAS and Nature. She received her Ph.D. in Biology in 1974 from S.U.N.Y. Albany.

Description: Both small, private and large, public actions are essential if we're to have any hope of addressing global warming and achieving a sustainable energy future.
John Heywood lays out three options for making some immediate inroads: conservation, which he says has somehow become a -bad word;" improving mainstream technology; and finding new ways to produce and use energy. First, the public must put aside delusions that new technologies -will save us." Hydrogen fuel cells and plug-in hybrids -are not there in terms of practicality." So, says Heywood, we -must get on the broader path that says the energy you and I use in the individual, small-scale sense must be far less per task." Why heat a 2000- square-foot home when -the square footage I occupy is two?" wonders Heywood. Improve the fuel consumption of the current internal combustion engine, and press auto manufacturers for small cars that can get 200 miles per gallon. Run the numbers on your home's energy costs, encourages Heywood, and tell your neighbors to switch off their lights.
We're -humans with appetites," and we need market-based incentives to change. We need help from regulatory and fiscal policies as well to shape up. -It's me and you, what we do, what we buy, how we use it _ all these things _ that will start us down the path," says Heywood.
One giant obstacle to our self-reform, says Stephen Ansolabehere, is the fact that -energy is abundant and cheap." The U.S., like China and India, sits on a huge pile of coal that could very well power our lives for the next 300 to 3,000 years _ if global warming doesn't first destroy the world's economies. We've been lulled into complacency, and so carbon emissions per person in the U.S. continue to rise, with China and India on the same trajectory.
Right now, the menu of alternative energy sources like solar panels and hybrid cars don't appeal to Americans because they cost more than the usual fare. The key is to -make coal on the same scale of price with other technologies," says Ansolabehere, -to make other technologies competitive."
So, asks Ansolabehere, -How do we get the U.S. under control, and then engage China and India?" His simple answer: -Taxes change behavior." Europe and Japan successfully demonstrate this approach. They acknowledge the costs coal imposes on society by taxing pollution, and have a much lower rate of emissions per capita than the U.S. One small, promising sign, he says, is that American consumers seem slightly more open to a carbon tax (a fee paid by companies, and then passed on to consumers) today than they were three years ago. The cap and trade system offers a gentler push on companies to lower carbon emissions, but citizens must forcefully lobby their political representatives to support this alternative. Without these larger efforts, it will be extremely difficult to reduce our collective carbon emissions as we cling to comfortable lifestyles.

About the Speaker(s): John Heywood has authored or co-authored 171 publications in journals and conference proceedings, in such areas as automotive technology; energy and transportation, air pollution and combustion.

He started at MIT in 1968 and became director of the Sloan Automotive Laboratory in 1972. He was co-director of the Leaders for Manufacturing Program from 1991-1993. He was appointed co-director of the Ford-MIT Alliance in 2003. He received a B.A. from Cambridge University and a Ph.D. from MIT. He is a member of the National Academy of engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Stephen Ansolabehere studies elections, democracy, and the mass media. He is coauthor (with Shanto Iyengar) of The Media Game (Macmillan, 1993) and of Going Negative: How Political Advertising Alienates and Polarizes the American Electorate (The Free Press, 1996). Ansolabehere is also a member of the Cal Tech/MIT Voting Project. which was established in 2000 to prevent a recurrence of the problems that threatened the 2000 US Presidential election.

Ansolabehere received a B.S. in Economics and B.A. in Political Science from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University.

Description: Despite their calm demeanors, Kerry Emanuel and Ernie Moniz impart grave and pressing concerns about global warming to this Museum gathering.
Emanuel admits that he was still a skeptic 20 years ago, but that detailed analysis of the earth's climate record, and sophisticated modeling have convinced him and a vast majority of his colleagues that we're witnessing a rapidly changing environment due to greenhouse gas emissions. The world is in the process of doubling its carbon dioxide emissions over the pre-industrial value of 280 parts per million. Experts project a 2-5 degree increase in the Earth's temperature, in our children's lifetimes.
-What keeps some of us awake at night and in my mind drives us to take seriously why we have to deal with energy, is surprises. Things that we're worried about that might happen, that we don't know enough to rule out. These are low probability but high impact events that anyone with children worries about," says Emanuel. One such surprise might be the rapid melting of the Greenland ice cap (which vanished once before, in the distant past, amazingly fast). If all this ice melts into the world's oceans, says Emanuel, -you're talking about seven meters of sea level rise: say goodbye to Cape Cod, southern Florida, a lot of Manhattan." Emanuel, a hurricane specialist, also foresees much greater intensity of hurricanes, as the world warms up.
This clear and present danger of climate change must force nations to control fossil fuel use, says Ernie Moniz. If we do nothing at all, carbon dioxide emissions will double over their pre-industrial values in 50 years -- a point of no return. Yet the task of completely altering our energy infrastructure in this timeframe -certainly violates no law of physics," says Moniz. We must be much more efficient in use of energy, especially in our residential and commercial buildings; we must find alternative transportation fuels; and we must achieve carbon-free or carbon-light electricity. There is no single -silver bullet" to wean us from fossil fuel addiction, and going from small-scale to large-scale production of energy alternatives will prove tricky.
Just as important, says Moniz, to get going on this new portfolio of technologies will require political will: -There must be a policy put in place relatively soon that one way or another attaches a price to greenhouse gas emissions,' and encourage the market introductions of new forms of energy. Moniz believes that for the U.S., reengineering the economy toward energy independence plays to our technological strengths, and aligns environment and security interests.

About the Speaker(s): Kerry Emanuel has been on the faculty of MIT since 1981. He was previously at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on tropical meteorology and climate, with a specialty in hurricane physics. His interests also include cumulus convection, and advanced methods of sampling the atmosphere in aid of numerical weather prediction. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and two books, including Divine Wind: The History and Science of Hurricanes, (2005, Oxford University Press).

Emanuel received his S.B. in Earth and Planetary Sciences from MIT, and earned a Ph.D. in Meteorology from MIT in 1978.
Ernest J. Moniz has served on the MIT faculty since 1973. He was Under Secretary of the Department of Energy from October 1997 until January 2001. He also served from 1995 to 1997 as Associate Director for Science in the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President.
At MIT, Moniz was Head of the Department of Physics and Director of the Bates Linear Accelerator Center. His principal research contributions have been in theoretical nuclear physics, particularly in advancing nuclear reaction theory at high energy.
Moniz received a B.S. degree in physics from Boston College, a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from Stanford University, and honorary doctorates from the University of Athens and the University of Erlangen-Nurenburg. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Humboldt Foundation, and the American Physical Society and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Moniz received the 1998 Seymour Cray HPCC Industry Recognition Award for vision and leadership in advancing scientific simulation.

Description: Jerry Melillo bears a formidable burden of knowledge. He studies the forces behind global warming, and attempts to predict how they will shape the future of the planet. Melillo's research involves both small-scale and large-scale studies, in different regions of the world, and allows him to form a truly global picture of the ways carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere, or stored within terrestrial ecosystems.
Melillo's research in Massachusetts forests has highlighted a little known piece of the carbon cycle: If more nitrogen becomes available to plants, they grow better, and tend to accumulate more carbon-- reducing the amount released to the atmosphere. So one way of helping reduce atmospheric CO2 is feeding trees with nitrogen. But this works only to a point, since too much nitrogen, from such sources as fertilizers, washes out of the soil and into water supplies.
The bigger picture Melillo presents is grim: human land use -- specifically the conversion of forests into agricultural land -- represents an irreversible loss of the capacity of the planet to store carbon. He points to an astonishingly destructive project: China's $7 billion dollar investment in Borneo in 2005 to clear tropical forests in order to create palm tree plantations to produce biofuel. Half of Borneo's forests are already gone. Comparable enterprises are underway in Brazil, clearing forest and savannah to make way for massive soy bean plantations -- for biodiesel fuel. Melillo points to the paradox of destroying carbon dioxide storing capacity, to feed economies that will produce more carbon dioxide. -The prospects for carbon storage on land, if this activity continues -- it's not a pretty picture,” he says. He also points out that as the world warms up, we must contend with more frequent forest fires, as well as the vast pool of carbon lying in cold regions, which will be released into the atmosphere as frozen soil thaws and decomposes.
-I look into a very clouded crystal ball,” concludes Melillo. -Our knowledge of the global carbon cycle is incomplete and our current approach of managing it is not in the interests of human kind.”

About the Speaker(s): Jerry Melillo studies how human activities are altering the biogeochemistry of terrestrial ecosystems. His research includes studies of carbon and nitrogen cycling in a range of ecosystems across the globe including arctic shrublands in northern Sweden, temperate forests in North America, and tropical forests and pastures in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. He has become increasingly committed to studying the large-scale effects of global change on terrestrial ecosystems, including effects on the chemistry of the atmosphere and on the climate system.

Melillo received his B.A and M.A.T. from Wesleyan University, and his M.F.S. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Host(s): School of Science, Center for Global Change Science

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Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:53:32 -0500http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16127-changes-in-the-land-environmental-stresses-and-the-terrestrial-biosphere-s-capacity-to-store-carbon
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/16127-changes-in-the-land-environmental-stresses-and-the-terrestrial-biosphere-s-capacity-to-store-carbon
Changes in the Land: Environmental Stresses and the Terrestrial Biosphere's Capacity to Store Carbon
MIT World — special events and lectures Does Nuclear Energy Have a Future? – Richard Lester - MIT Club of Northern California
Dr. Richard Lester, one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of nuclear energy, will discuss the potential of nuclear reactor and fuel cycle innovations with respect to economic competitiveness, modularity, safety and energy security. He will evaluate the role of America’s nuclear energy innovation system, including new challenges for nuclear science and engineering education.

Richard K. Lester is Head of MIT’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, where he is also the founding director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center. His research focuses on innovation management and policy, with an emphasis on the energy and manufacturing sectors. He has also published widely on the management and control of nuclear technology.

Dr. Lester received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from Imperial College (London) and his PhD in nuclear engineering from MIT. He has been a member of the MIT faculty since 1979. He serves on several boards and as an advisor and consultant to corporations, governments, foundations and non-profit groups, and speaks frequently to academic, business and general audiences throughout the world.

Professor Lester’s latest book, Unlocking Energy Innovation, will be published by MIT Press in November. In addition to many other books, he published the landmark Made in America with Michael Dertouzos and Robert Solow. He is also the co-author of the widely-cited recent MIT reports on The Future of Nuclear Power and The Future of Coal.
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Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:33:08 -0400http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/15080-does-nuclear-energy-have-a-future-richard-lester-mit-club-of-northern-california
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/15080-does-nuclear-energy-have-a-future-richard-lester-mit-club-of-northern-california
Does Nuclear Energy Have a Future? – Richard Lester - MIT Club of Northern California
Energy and Clean Tech Series Stephanie Dutkiewicz follows the motion of the ocean, its nutrients, and phytoplankton
Stephanie’s work begins with 3-Dimensional modeling of how ocean waters move and mix, an effort accomplished through collaboration with MIT research scientist Jeffrey Scott. She then overlays information on how carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and other nutrients move on top of these computer simulations.

Next, Stephanie models the biological component. “The oceans are responsible for about 50% of primary production,” explains Stephanie. “So 50% of the sunlight that is taken into the body of plant-like organisms (phytoplankton) occurs in the ocean.” These organisms take up carbon and other nutrients and, upon dying, some fraction sink to the bottom of the ocean, carrying those nutrients with them.

But not all phytoplankton are created equal— some species are better able to act as carbon sinks than others. Phytoplankton structure and type is driven by ocean circulation and the distribution of nutrients. Large species pull more carbon into deep ocean reservoirs when they sink; smaller species less.

As climate change affects ocean circulation and nutrient availability, some species may become “winners”, filling ecological niches and spreading to new geographical regions. Other species may die out. Stephanie models how these community structures change in the future, and how those changes in turn affect carbon cycling.

Unfortunately, it seems climate change favors mostly the smaller species, resulting in less of a carbon sink. “Understanding climate change means understanding feedbacks,” says Stephanie. “If the ocean takes up less carbon, that’s a feedback into the carbon system.”

During her 12 years at MIT, Stephanie has contributed to the development of the Joint Program’s Integrated Global Systems Model (IGSM) and collaborated with the MIT Climate Modeling Initiative and the Darwin Project. “I really like the group of people I’m working with. Developing this model has been quite exciting— it’s a good place to be.”
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Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:43:19 -0400http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/14482-stephanie-dutkiewicz-follows-the-motion-of-the-ocean-its-nutrients-and-phytoplankton
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/14482-stephanie-dutkiewicz-follows-the-motion-of-the-ocean-its-nutrients-and-phytoplankton
Stephanie Dutkiewicz follows the motion of the ocean, its nutrients, and phytoplankton
Researcher Highlights MIT Releases Report on the Future of Natural Gas Mon, 01 Aug 2011 10:06:12 -0400http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/13657-mit-releases-report-on-the-future-of-natural-gas
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/13657-mit-releases-report-on-the-future-of-natural-gas
MIT Releases Report on the Future of Natural Gas
MIT Energy Initiative Math, Modeling and the Ocean Carbon Storage Story
Dependence of the ocean-atmosphere partitioning of carbon on temperature and alkalinity Omta and co-authors explain this decrease in carbon uptake by means of a theory based on elementary carbonate chemistry which is also applied to study the effect of ocean temperature on carbon partitioning.
In this interview he describes his work, the path that brought him to PAOC and what excites him about his research.]]>
Tue, 19 Jul 2011 15:22:05 -0400http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/13567-math-modeling-and-the-ocean-carbon-storage-story
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/13567-math-modeling-and-the-ocean-carbon-storage-story
Math, Modeling and the Ocean Carbon Storage Story
EAPS Research Scientist Matt Rigby calculates carbon sources and sinksThu, 14 Apr 2011 14:45:27 -0400http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/12150-research-scientist-matt-rigby-calculates-carbon-sources-and-sinks
http://techtv.mit.edu/videos/12150-research-scientist-matt-rigby-calculates-carbon-sources-and-sinks
Research Scientist Matt Rigby calculates carbon sources and sinks
Researcher Highlights Environmental Energy Economist Niven Winchester investigates the economic impacts of climate policies
A visiting scientist since June 2009, Niven Winchester has officially joined the Joint Program as an Environmental Energy Economist. A native of New Zealand, Niven broadly focuses his research on evaluating the economic costs and impacts of climate change policies and new technologies. Currently, he is interested in how climate policies affect what is called ‘leakage’: the shifting of greenhouse gas emissions from nations with stricter climate policies to countries without climate policies.

One proposed policy option for reducing this ‘leakage’ is to impose border carbon adjustments, such as tariffs on embodied greenhouse gases. For example, nations with climate policies may place a tax on imported goods to adjust for the greenhouse gases that would have been emitted if the products had been produced domestically. Interested in the effectiveness of this type of policy, Niven is exploring how tariffs actually impact leakage, and at what economic costs (See Report Summary 192 on Page 5).

To examine the effects of policies like carbon tariffs, Niven and his colleagues in the Joint Program employ large-scale models of the world’s economy, “building up, layer-by-layer, pieces of information about different aspects of the climate story, about different technologies or different policies” in order to understand how policy changes and technological developments will impact both greenhouse gas emissions and the economy.

Niven’s work suggests that carbon tariffs can cause significant economic distortions and may not be good for overall economic activity. Based upon these findings, Niven reasons that encouraging nations without climate policies to adopt minor efficiency actions—rather than imposing carbon tariffs on imported goods from these nations—will likely be a more cost-effective way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in developing countries.

Given the lack of political progress on federal climate policies, Niven and his colleagues are now shifting their focus toward analyzing alternative policies, such as bio-fuel mandates and state-level programs. According to Niven, the modeling framework can not only be employed to analyze the impacts of particular technological developments or climate policies, but it also “can be used to look at the impact of climate change if we don’t do any action.”

Climate change and its political, social and economic implications are pushing companies to find ways to reduce the carbon footprint of their supply chains. This project examines tradeoffs between carbon footprint, cost, time and risk across three case studies of United States' perishable and consumer packaged goods firms and their transportation partners.

Achieving the Energy-Efficient Supply Chain, Conference by MIT-CTL and CSCMP

The development of energy-efficient distribution centers is just one of the supply chain-related environmental programs underway at Staples. Mark Buckley explains how he collaborates with the supply chain to cut the retailer's carbon emissions and energy costs.